New Work, Old Work

I want to share a paragraph about new work from the book Art and Fear:

"In routine artistic growth, new work doesn't make the old work false -- it makes it more artificial, more of an artifice. Older work is ofttimes an embarrassment to the artist because it feels like it was made by a younger, more naive person -- one who was ignorant of the pretension and striving in the work. Earlier work often feels, curiously, both too labored and too simple. This is normal. New work is supposed to replace old work. If it does so by making the old work inadequate, insufficient and incomplete -- well, that's life . . . Old work tells you what you were paying attention to then; new work comments on the old by pointing out what you were not previously paying attention to. Now this would all be smooth and lovely, except that new work can turn to old work in an instant -- sometimes, indeed, in the instant immediately following the work's completion. Savoring finished work may last only an eye-blink. This is certainly unpleasant -- but it's a good sign."

This is a good sign? Oh. I thought it was some sort of defect in me. The hard part is selling old work that has lost my interest, because I'm on to something new. I find it difficult to talk up the old work. I think that's part of why artists find it so much easier to let someone else do the selling for them.