I would like to start this thread by recommending the book Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
“This is a book about making art. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially—statistically speaking—there aren’t any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place. For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius.”
—-from the Introduction
I am reading this for the second time in less than a year and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is an eye opener, a comforter, a motivator. Get it. Read it. Tell about it.