Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon is full of things you’ve heard on the internet because his voice has broken through the barrier for a lot of creatives and they take his words to heart. You’ll see him referenced everywhere. What’s nice is that the book is easy to read, it’s fast to read, and it’s comforting to come back to. Another shoutout to him, I do appreciate his newsletters so you should sign up too.
One of the things that resonates with me and actually has popped up in other books I’ve read is the chapter about Side Projects and Hobbies. One of the first things he notes is about “productive procrastination.”
To me, what this boils down to is that your brain does miraculous things when you’re not focused. In the book Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind by the doctor Srini Pillay, the idea is that letting your brain unfocus does it as much good AS focusing.
While this seems counterintuitive on the surface, what it’s doing is giving you the time and space for your brain to have those Oprah famous “aha” moments.
Whether you’re meditating, taking a walk, doodling (which you can see my video on), or having a famous shower thought, your brain is having a grand old time when it’s not focused. In Steal Like an Artist, this is turned into procrastination where you turn your focus into something a bit more mundane. Your brain will finally have a rest from focusing and give you some amazing ideas.
The best part of this book, which is also the subject of Show Your Work, is the part about the Secret, which, is not a secret since it’s very obviously on the back cover.
Do Good Work and Share it With People doesn’t seem like a huge secret but it’s secret enough to make a difference. Showing your finished piece of work isn’t interesting to people, showing the process is. People want to see the human behind the Instagram feed. Why are influencers popular? They show you how they do things.
It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be: The world's best-selling book by Paul Arden is a short book, full of quotes, anecdotes, and recipes for creativity. I think that this is actually my father’s book and I know he doesn’t read my blog so he’ll never know I have it!
This book is something you can finish in less than two hours, but if you were to actually sit with it and take it seriously, you’d improve a lot. It’s spun more for marketing and advertising, but it can still be implemented well if you take it as a way to improve your art.
Find Your Artistic Voice by Lisa Congdon is a fairly newish book and it says a lot of things that we’ve heard before, or have we? Sometimes when you are so entrenched with self-help or inspirational videos or artists, you tend to see similar themes come up.
What I like about Congdon’s book is that it focuses more on in-depth interviews with other creatives and lo and behold, what Congdon is saying is actually how these other creative people got started or keep going. This is a great book for when you’re feeling a bit more unmotivated or stuck. One of the ways you can become inspired is to research the people behind the art that you like. Who are they inspired by? Looking into those people is a great way to get refreshed.
Keep Going is the last book on this short book list and it’s probably the most important one because like I just mentioned, we all sometimes lose steam or motivation or inspiration, and we just don’t want to continue. So, you could either stop altogether, but that wouldn’t be very helpful, or you can read Austin Kleon’s book and implement some of his strategies.
One of them is Airplane Mode as a way of life. Not letting distractions like notifications or YouTube videos catch your eye but instead using that boredom of not having distractions actually inspire you to get up and do something.
One of the really poignant parts of this book is on page 80 in which Kleon recounts how some people love to tell others that they should try to make money off of their hobby.
Not all hobbies need to make money, they can simply be the thing that you are interested in.
As he says, one of the easiest ways to hate something you love is to turn it into a job. If you’re just on the sidelines, making things you like but don’t rely on for an income, you might be happier than when you put all your eggs in that one basket, to quote the attractive men and women on Love Island. They know it’s better to diversify a bit.
That’s my round up of the books making me happy as a creative person right now. What are you into? What books would you add to this list?
Make more art!
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