I'm an artisan -- not an artist. Like a carpenter or plumber, I have a job to do. I have deadlines, project parameters and budgets just like any other working stiff and even though the product of my labor might not be as quantifiable as a toilet or kitchen cabinet (although sometimes it winds up being flushed...), it's a commodity. 

I've always appreciated the great "working" composers like Bach, Brahms, Stravinsky, Bernstein and Williams (John) -- guys who understood that the "job" of any composer who puts out a shingle is to deliver evocative and emotive music, with the emphasis on deliver. My hope is that, through the daily practice of my craft or the sheer volume of output, I create music that can stand on it's own, beyond a transient, consumable "product", something more permanent. But in the mean time, I have to get up every morning and get busy doing my job.