David Bazan is dead on.

If you could give one piece of advice to another musician or songwriter starting out, what would it be?

“If you want to do this and be serious, you have to find your own rhythm independently of money or praise. If you can find that, then you can do it for a long time, but you can’t need more encouragement than you’re going to get. Needing recognition is natural, but you need to get by on very, very little if you want to not go crazy and be able to have a sustainable workflow.

And also, if you’re interested in finding any kind of contentment from doing this, know that the buzz, the accolades, the money, the fans—it goes up and down and is a fickle thing. If you depend on it, you’re going to go nuts and develop bad, bad habits and hurt the people that love you.

It’s you in your bedroom; it’s you in a small space playing for people that is the basic element of what’s going on. So have a serious mind about what is real and what is not important when it comes to being creative. The wilderness is your home in that sense so you should love it—it’s a really, really wonderful place.”

-David Bazan, via The Great Discontent