✦ Minimum Shippable Beauty (M.S.B.)
Why the feeling of "not quite ready" may actually be the signal to ship
I have four unreleased songs burning a hole in my hard drive.
And a newsletter I’ve been circling for years. Same pattern: finished work, held hostage, secretly terrified to release.
Let me tell you how I’m breaking the pattern right now—and the one reframe that might help you ship your own stuck work.
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I initially conceived of ( ritual ) creative a podcast—deep conversations with artists about their creative practice, the kind of talk you have at 2am when pretense falls away. Then it became an online cohort called Creative Practice, a cohort-based program I co-created and co-facilitated with Casea Rose and Court Roberts of FORMA, bringing together 120+ creators for 21-day journeys into their creativity. We had incredible artists share their process— RYX, Dina Noor Sati, Talia Magliaccio and many more.
People made films, wrote poems, recorded songs. It worked.
But the newletter itself—this thing you’re reading now—kept waiting. Waiting for the right moment, the clearer vision, the version of myself that would feel ready to claim this space publicly.
Here’s what I’ve learned after a decade of making films and music, of serving other people’s visions while my own work waited in the margins: that feeling of “not quite ready” isn’t a warning signal. It’s a threshold. And for those of us who’ve spent years mastering our craft in service of client work, it’s become a permission structure for infinite delay.
So this is me, stepping through.
If you want to walk this path with me—raw creative process, Open Studio conversations, and the frameworks I’m learning as I learn them—subscribe below.
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Field notes from a fellow creator, in process
Six years ago, I moved to the desert and started what I’ve come to think of as a creative excavation. For a decade before that, I’d been bringing other people’s visions to life—documentary campaigns, branded films, stories rendered with craft and care. I loved that work. Still do. But something was asking to shift.
The music living inside me wanted out. The inquiries I’d been keeping in journals—about creativity as devotional practice, about sustainable artistic lives, about what it means to center your own vision—they were ready to be tested in the world, not just contemplated in solitude.
So I turned toward it. Started working on an EP. Began composing for film. Collaborated on music videos with artists whose work moves me. There’s a body of work emerging, slowly, imperfectly, teaching me as it comes.
👆🏽a film I directed / shot / scored titled “CAMARATA” I made in collaboration with a dear sister, performance artist Hannah Camarata early in my New Mexico chapter
But here’s what’s true: I’m still very much a student of this. Still learning how to build momentum around my own artistic vision, still figuring out how to integrate music and film and all the other impulses without fragmenting. Still finding the courage to ship work that feels vulnerable.
And that’s why ( ritual ) creative exists — not as a platform to speak from a place that I’ve arrived, but as a way to externalize the investigation I’m living inside right now. To share what I’m learning as I’m learning it. Transmissions from the edge of my own creative becoming.
This space explores what it means to build a creative life that regenerates rather than extracts, organized around three inseparable questions:
Craft — How do we make work that’s alive, not just competent? Work that carries our actual voice, not the polished approximation of what we think people want to hear. The daily practices and rhythms that let the subtle impulse take form.
Meaning — What are we really in service to when we create? This is the question of the muse, the reason we make at all. It’s about building practice—real practice—that keeps the channel open even when conditions aren’t perfect.
Livelihood — How do we sustain this without burning out or selling out? The economics nobody discusses honestly. How to design a creative life where your own artistic vision sits at the center, not squeezed into the margins after you’ve given your best energy to client work.
These aren’t territories I’ve mastered. They’re the terrain I’m walking.
The curse of grand visions
Here’s what happened when I first approached the impulse behind ( ritual ) creative: it quickly grew in size and scope.
It should be a podcast with world-class creators. With accompanying film vignettes. Full production with music scores and beautiful cinematography. The whole architecture.
I felt nearly crushed under the weight of the thing.
So I did what felt responsible: I started building toward that vision. I shot an interview with my artist friend Daniel N. Johnson on his journey into photography. Then another with Olé, a multi-disciplinary embroidery artist based in Bali. Gorgeous B-roll in his studio. Thoughtful conversations. All the pieces for something substantial.
Each of these pieces added another condition on shipping. Now I needed to match that production quality for every guest. Now I needed a consistent visual system. Now I needed a release strategy that could support the whole infrastructure.
I wasn’t refining a vision—I was adding layers of complexity to make it feel like “enough”. The gap kept widening.
Here’s what I’m doing instead: I’m shipping this post. This is my Minimum Shippable Beauty—MSB. It’s expressive of the impulse, without the added complexity. Those interviews? That footage? They can find their place later as I build momentum. But if I wait to ship until the full architecture is in place, I’ll wait forever.
The real cost of not shipping
Here’s the pattern I see everywhere among experienced creators: we ship flawlessly for others—hit deadlines, manage stakeholders, deliver excellence. But when it comes to our own work, we become archaeologists of our own resistance.
I know this intimately. I’ve been producing and hoarding songs that are whole enough—complete drafts with melody, lyrics, structure. But instead of shipping them, I watched the work grow stale under my own questioning.
Months pass. You grow past the work, but you’re still holding those old pieces. And nothing new can arrive. You’re standing in the doorway, and the muse is knocking, but there’s no room for her to enter.
When you don’t complete and ship, you block the creative channel.
Think of your creative practice as a living system. The spark arrives. You tend it, shape it, bring it toward form. And then if you actually ship it, something extraordinary happens: you create negative space. Finishing and releasing a work—even an imperfect work—creates suction. It pulls the next work forward.
But here’s what surprises me every time I let someone in on the music: suddenly the work has its own life. It moves people in unexpected ways.
the loving field | new horizon | work-in-progress
a collaboration with producer Alex Simon / “Toneranger” & vocalist Lou Lodigensky / “Melas Leukos”
The work didn’t emerge FOR me. It emerged THROUGH me. And it’s here to collide with humans out in the world.
When I hold it back, I’m not protecting it. I’m suffocating it.
Minimum Shippable Beauty (M.S.B.)
So here’s the reframe: instead of asking “Is this good enough?” I ask “What’s the minimum beauty I can ship today?”
Not minimum viable product (a term from product development)— but minimum shippable beauty.
MVP is about market validation. You’re testing whether the thing matches what an audience wants. The optimization is external.
But MSB is different. You’re attuning to the inner spark, not the outer response. The question isn’t “Will this land?” The question is: “Was I faithful to what wanted to come through?”
MSB is about three things:
Completing a draft — Not perfect. Not impressive. Just whole. You’re aiming for wholeness, not excellence.
Honoring what arrived — Were you a responsible midwife to what arrived? Did you give it enough attention to take form, without smothering it with anxiety about reception?
Shipping and moving on — Releasing it so the next thing can come. Trusting that velocity matters more than perfection.
Rick Rubin says it this way:
“The work doesn’t belong to you. It came through you to reach others. Your job is to complete it and let it go.”
A shitty first draft = msb
Here’s the practice: when you feel the spark, your target isn’t brilliance. Your target is completing a shitty first draft. And often, that shitty first draft is minimum shippable beauty.
Notice the impulse — Something wants to come through. Don’t judge it. Just notice it.
Time-box the draft — Two hours. A morning. A week. Not “until it’s done.” Give it focused time, then ship it.
Complete it, even if rough — Make it whole. Beginning, middle, end.
Ship it — Pick a date to ship it. Release it, and let it go.
Notice what happens next — The muse shows up again. The channel opens. You’re in motion.
The time-boxing is critical. Without a constraint, you’ll refine forever. The deadline forces completion. And completion closes the loop.
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How to know when you’re at MSB
Is it whole? Does it complete a thought, a feeling, a gesture? You don’t need polish. You need closure.
Does it still carry the spark? Can you feel the original impulse that moved you to make it? Or have you edited the life out of it?
Am I delaying out of craft... or fear? Be ruthlessly honest.
If it’s whole, if it carries the spark, and you’re delaying out of fear—you’re at MSB. Ship it.
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The momentum principle
Here’s the irony: in this age of content overload, trying to make your thing absolutely perfect is the wrong strategy.
What cuts through isn’t perfection. It’s resonance over time, built through consistent showing up. It’s the body of work that emerges when you’re willing to ship the imperfect thing and move to the next.
Momentum creates magnetism. When you’re feeding the muse and closing the creative loop regularly, something shifts. You stop being someone who’s perpetually preparing to make things. You become someone who makes things.
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What’s coming
In the weeks ahead, I’ll share reflections from my studio practice, frameworks and rituals that help me create consistently, and conversations with other artists walking this path. Some posts will be tactical. Some will wade into deeper water. Some will be half-formed thoughts I’m figuring out as I write.
That’s the point. This isn’t about arrival. It’s about making the journey visible.
If you’re a multi-hyphenate creator feeling fragmented, if you’ve mastered your craft in service of client work but feel your own artistic voice going quiet, if you’re making good money but creating nothing that feels like legacy—you’re in the right place.
If you’ve been sitting on your own version of “someday I’ll launch that thing,” consider this: what if the resistance itself—that prickling discomfort—is actually the signal to move?
This is me, launching before I’m ready. Demonstrating MSB by doing it.
Thanks for being here at the beginning.
In rhythm,
Benjamin
Always a pleasure to witness your artistry, Benji! New horizons on the way.
Thank you for sharing your many gifts! ♥️