Rating- 9/10
Date finished- October 19, 2020
Impressions
How can you not love Austin Kleon's books. Short, full of content and interesting. If you enjoyed 'Show Your work' then you will also enjoy this.
Who should read it
Everyone- we all have something that we make - should make a point of reading this. If you would like to enter into the creator community then I would highly recommend this to you. Won't take you more than an hour, I promise.
Summary+ high yield notes
1. Steal like an artist
How does an artist look at the world?- Figure out what is worth stealing and move on to the next thing
"Everything is up for grabs. If you donât find something worth stealing today, you might find it worth stealing tomorrow or a month or a year from now."
Nothing is original- All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing comes from nowhere.
âWhat is originality? Undetected plagiarism.â âWilliam Ralph Inge
The genealogy of ideas- Any new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas
Garbage in garbage out- The artist is a collector, not a hoarder. Artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love.
"Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by."
Chew on one thinkerâwriter, artist, activist, role modelâyou really love. Study everything there is to know about that thinker. Then find three people that thinker loved, and find out everything about them. Repeat this as many times as you can.
School yourself- Be curious about the world you live in. Look things up. Go deeper than anybody else. Google everything. Develop a reading habit.
"Go to the library. Thereâs magic in being surrounded by books. Get lost in the stacks. Read bibliographies. Itâs not the book you start with, itâs the book that book leads you to."
Save your thefts for later- "Carry a notebook and a pen with you wherever you go. Get used to pulling it out and jotting down your thoughts and observations. Copy your favorite passages out of books. Record overheard conversations. Doodle when youâre on the phone."
âIt is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.â âMark Twain
2. Don't wait until you know who you are to get started
You are ready, start making stuff- It is natural to be scared to start. Learn how to overcome impostor syndrome
At times, we feel like a phony, we really don't have any idea what we are doing.
Ask anybody doing truly creative work, and theyâll tell you the truth: They donât know where the good stuff comes from. They just show up to do their thing. Every day.
Fake it 'til you make it
âYou start out as a phony and become real.â âGlenn OâBrien
Start copying- The first step is to figure out who to copy and then what to copy.
"Who to copy is easy. You copy your heroesâthe people you love, the people youâre inspired by, the people you want to be."
"What to copy is a little bit trickier. Donât just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You donât want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes."
"The reason to copy your heroes and their style is so that you might somehow get a glimpse into their minds. Thatâs what you really wantâto internalize their way of looking at the world."
Don't just steal from one of your heroes, steal from all of them. Copying from one author is plagiarism but copying from many is research.
Copy your heroes. Examine where you fall short. Whatâs in there that makes you different? Thatâs what you should amplify and transform into your own work.
3. Write the book you want to read
Write what you like, not what you know.
"Think about your favorite work and your creative heroes. What did they miss? What didnât they make? What couldâve been made better? If they were still alive, what would they be making today? If all your favorite makers got together and collaborated, what would they make with you leading the crew?"
The manifesto is this: Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to useâdo the work you want to see done.
4. Use your hands
Step away from the screen- The computer is good fro editing your ideas and getting them ready for publishing out into the world but it is not good for generating ideas.
The problem with the computer is that it brings out the uptight perfectionist in usâwe start editing ideas before we have them.
"Try it: If you have the space, set up two workstations, one analog and one digital. For your analog station, keep out anything electronic. Take $10, go to the school supply aisle of your local store, and pick up some paper, pens, and sticky notes. When you get back to your analog station, pretend itâs craft time. Scribble on paper, cut it up, and tape the pieces back together. Stand up while youâre working. Pin things on the walls and look for patterns. Spread things around your space and sort through them. Once you start getting your ideas, then you can move over to your digital station and use the computer to help you execute and publish them. When you start to lose steam, head back to the analog station and play."
5. Side projects and hobbies are important
Practice productive procrastination- Don't underestimate the stuff that you thought you were just messing around.
If youâre out of ideas, wash the dishes. Take a really long walk. Stare at a spot on the wall for as long as you can. As the artist Maira Kalman says, âAvoiding work is the way to focus my mind.â
"Take time to mess around. Get lost. Wander. You never know where itâs going to
lead you."
"If you have two or three real passions, donât feel like you have to pick and choose between them. Donât discard. Keep all your passions in your life."
"Itâs so important to have a hobby. A hobby is something creative thatâs just for you. You donât try to make money or get famous off it, you just do it because it makes you happy. A hobby is something that gives but doesnât take."
6. The secret: do good work and share with people
In the beginning, obscurity is good- Soon after, you learn that most of the world doesnât necessarily care about what you think. It sounds harsh, but itâs true.
Steven Pressfield: "It is not that people are mean or cruel, they are just busy."
"Thereâs no pressure when youâre unknown. You can do what you want. Experiment. Do things just for the fun of it. When youâre unknown, thereâs nothing to distract you from getting better. No public image to manage. No huge paycheck on the line."
Enjoy your obscurity while it lasts. Youâll never get that freedom back again once people start paying you attention, and especially not once they start paying you money.
The not-so-secret formula-
If there was a secret formula for becoming known, I would give it to you. But thereâs only one not-so-secret formula that I know: Do good work and share it with people.
The two step process: (i) Make stuff everyday. Fail. Get better.
(ii) Put yourself on the internet.
Learn to code. Figure out how to make a website. Figure out blogging. Figure out Twitter and social media and all that other stuff. Find people on the Internet who love the same things as you and connect with them. Share things with them.
Share something, be it a process you are learning , a snippet, a tip, book notes etc.
7. Geography is no longer our master
Leave home. Your brain gets too comfortable in your everyday surroundings. You need to make it uncomfortable. You need to spend some time in another land, among people that do things differently than you. Travel makes the world look new, and when the world looks new, our brains work harder.
8. Be nice(The world is a small town)
Make friends, ignore enemies- Be a nice human being
"If you talk about someone on the Internet, they will find out. Everybody has a Google alert on their name. The best way to vanquish your enemies on the Internet? Ignore them. The best way to make friends on the Internet? Say nice things about them."
âThereâs only one rule I know of: Youâve got to be kind.â âKurt Vonnegut
Stand next to the talent- Follow the best people online- the people who are smarter and better than you. Pay attention to what they are talking about, doing and linking to.
Don't pick internet fights.
âComplain about the way other people make software by making software.â âAndre Torrez
Write fan letters- "Write a blog post about someoneâs work that you admire and link to their site. Make something and dedicate it to your hero. Answer a question theyâve asked, solve a problem for them, or improve on their work and share it online."
Validation is for parking- People will misinterpret you and what you do. Get comfortable with being misunderstood, disparaged, or ignoredâthe trick is to be too busy doing your work to care.
9. Be boring (It is the only way to get work done)
Take care of yourself- Get enough sleep. Exercise. Go for medical check-ups.
Stay out of debt- Live within your means. Make a budget. Learn about personal finance. Get into the habit of saving. Say no to consumer culture.
Keep your day job- A day job gives you money, a connection to the world, and a routine. Freedom
from financial stress also means freedom in your art. A day job puts you in the path of other human beings. Learn from them, steal from them.
Establishing and keeping a routine can be even more important than having a lot of time. Inertia is the death of creativity.
Get yourself a calendar- A calendar helps you plan work, gives you concrete goals, and keeps you on track.
Keep a logbook- "Just as you need a chart of future events, you also need a chart of past events. A
logbook isnât necessarily a diary or a journal, itâs just a little book in which you list the things you do every day. What project you worked on, where you went to lunch, what movie you saw."
10. Creativity is subtraction
Choose what to leave out- There is a lot of information out there. ****Figure out what you should leave out in order to concentrate on what is really important. Place some constraints on yourself.