Samuel Butler said in The Way of All Flesh: "Everyone has a mass of bad work in him which he will have to work off and get rid of before he can do better -- and indeed, the more lasting a man's ultimate good work is, the more sure he is to pass through a time, and perhaps a very long one, in which there seems very little hope for him at all."

The composer Paul Reale said, "To write good music, you have to write a lot of bad music first."

Whether it's a gift or a curse to know your crappy work for what it is, I'm not sure.