Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
Central Argument: Everyone can make art and the way to make it is by stealing and mashing plenty of existing ideas and customizing it to present your work.
Why is this important: This is important because it is important to let go of the illusion that geniuses produce stellar 'originals'. That illusion stops many from doing great work. People don’t put in the hard work necessary because of this limiting mindset.
Flow:
Where does one get ideas from? By stealing. A good artist understands that nothing comes from nowhere. There is nothing new under the sun. Thus we should embrace influence instead of chasing originality.
Garbage in garbage out- The artist is a collector and not a hoarder. Our job is to collect and curate good ideas. Steal that which directly speaks to our soul.
Climb your own family tree, read deeply, and make notes- Chew on one thinker you really love (writer, activist, artists) and study everything that person has contributed. Seek who their influences are and study them too. Repeat the process and you will have your own genealogy. See yourself as part of this lineage as you make stuff. You will be in great company now.
You have to be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else-that's how you'll get ahead.
Be a note maker. Make notes all the time of whatever inspires you of others work. Create a swipe file.
If I'd waited to know who I was or what I was about before I started "being creative", well, I'd still be sitting around trying to figure myself out instead of making things. In my experience, it's in the act of making things and doing our work that we figure out who we are.
How does one make when there is a paralyzing fear? The impostor syndrome is real. The fact is that all educated people feel it. The only way about it is to fake it till you make it. Nobody is born with a voice. It comes with pretending to take off from people we admire. The more people we admire, all their traits will influence us. It does involve studying the people we love and learning to think like them.
The reason to copy your heroes and their style is so that you might somehow get a glimpse into their minds. That's what you really want-to internalize their way of looking at the world.
Move from imitation to emulation of these heroes. Imitation is copying stuff. Emulation goes one step ahead where it breaks through into our own thinking and action. No one will be able to perfectly copy their heroes. We'll see the gaps and adapt. The difference is where you should amplify as your work and contribution. This goes back to the concept that it's in the act of making things and doing our work that we figure out who we are.
Write the book you want to read. Do not write the story you know but the story you like. He draws this from his experience with fan fiction where he would write sequels and prefer that over what eventually came out in the theaters. So we should write the story we want to read. Understand what the gap between how our creative heroes and us are when we imagine what a better argument or plot would be. He ends that piece by asking:
What did they miss? What didn't they make? What could have 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? Go make that stuff.
Engage in analog ways of working as we were made to use our bodies to think and work. Make two work spaces if we can. Let the thinking and rough creation happen in one space with paper, pens etc. Let the other be digital where we polish it up. When we get stuck we return to the analog space to rethink and get unstuck and then get back to digital to edit and finish the work. The creative will experience a dance between analog and digital.
Likewise, keep all your passions active. Switching between these passions will help practice productive procrastination. You don't need to pick and choose between these. You need all these to live a full life. Keep hobbies that make you happy too. Don't worry about how all these passions will unite and create a grand theme stitched well.
Don’t worry about unity - what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day you'll look back and it will all make sense.
The Secret to being popular: Do good work and share it with people. If you do not feel like saying everything about something for various fears, share abstracted bits. You control what you publish. You need to do good work though. This will demand simple things like being isolated and working. Do it. Surround that environment with things you love, like books, art, etc.
Go away from home: Find times in everyday activities to step out without connectivity. Cut out the Wi-Fi during such times. Just take your notebook and pen. Even at airports, do not open the laptop, just write and make use of the notebook. Do not avoid boredom.
Make friends: Make friends online by saying nice things about them. Those influencers are on the internet. They will know if you have ever said anything negative about them. Avoid negativity by ignoring your enemies. Follow the best people (smarter and better than you) in your field. Pay attention to what they are doing and talking about. Write public fan letters!
Write a blog post about someone's work that you admire and link to their site. Make something and dedicate it to your hero. Answer a question they've asked, solve a problem for them, or improve on their work and share it online.
Keep the long view in mind: He says three things in this section. Assume you live a long life and build disciplines into it. Don't go crazy on your creative pursuit and spend yourself like there's no tomorrow as it will destroy your life. So eat health, exercise, play with your kids. Secondly, learn about money as soon as you can. Which means pinch your pennies and live well within your means. Life can be hard. For a long time you may have a day job to fund your creative pursuits. And that's GREAT! You get the money. But it also builds disciplines and routines that are helpful. It will give you the resources that will feed ideas into your work from people you meet, events you are part of etc. Finally, figure out what time you will be working on your project and stick to that everyday no matter what. There are no sick days or holidays. Get yourself a calendar and "don't break the chain" (Jerry Seinfeld)
Creativity is subtraction: We need to choose what to leave out. That's the skill that we need to master in this day of information overload.
In this age of information abundance and overload, those who get ahead will be the folks who figure out what to leave out, so they can concentrate on what's really important to them. Nothing is more paralyzing than the idea of limitless possibilities. The idea that you can do anything is absolutely terrifying.
The way to get over creative block is to place constraints on yourself. Do something in an hour. Don't check for sources on the internet but from memory. etc.
Don't make excuses for not working-make things with the time, space, and materials you have, right now.
You must embrace your limitations and keep moving.