I started meeting the right people, like [producer] Dave [Okumu], who explained to me how songwriting is really simple - "just like shitting," he said. "You gotta let it all out. " When he put it like that, however disgusting it is, it made a lot of sense to me.
It's helpful to be prepared to celebrate the tiny things that you can do, where you meet the world and you negotiate an outcome that's quite tiny. But you can still make it feel remarkable.