The last 10% of any creative act is the hard part. (Previously: Finishing is a skill.) You had an idea, thought it would take X days, only to find X-1 days of all these other things that have to be done. That’s functional scope creep.

Finishing, actually getting the draft or project out of your computer and out into the world, that’s a whole other list of things. Lots of work, and surprises, are lurking here. Call it delivery scope creep. Or a finishing tax. And, it’s a mental challenge, getting over the “they’re all gonna laugh at you” fear. (But not in the Adam Sandler way.)

The more steps you can remove from putting something out there, the more you can put out there. (There’s always money in the shovel stand.) Ergo, the continuous development of new systems and tools to make online publishing easier, despite the market having excited for nearly three decades.

Related, the programmers’ credo: “we do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy.” So goes software, so goes any other creative endeavor.

Writing words and writing code feel similar, for me. (And, playing a musical instrument, if I go far back enough.) They are equal parts mechanical performance, exercise of taste, and act of creation. For all of them, I want to be in a flow state. I want to go as deep as I can, time permitting. I want to hold a whole world in my head. I want to work among as many details, as deeply as possible.

Finishing, whether it’s releasing software or publishing an essay, reviewing code, or editing and revising words, are a different skillset. Differently creative, but still putting something new into existence. There’s a nice symmetry there. If you can get good at editing and revising words, you can get good at editing and revising code.

Getting over the last 90% of any kind of project, whether code or words or music, is the same skill.

It’s like the last 90% of anything is just a mindset, almost a resilience of mind. If you can get good at one, the skill carries over into anything that requires finishing.

It feels like life pulls a fast one on us, at times. “What got us here, won’t get us there”. Making the software, essay, or music is different from shipping, publishing, or releasing it. But if you can get good at any one of shipping, publishing, or releasing, you are considerably further ahead on getting good at the other two.