steal like an artist

Title: Steal Like An Artist
Author: Austin Kleon

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13099738-steal-like-an-artist

Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal,

bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.

—T.S. Eliot

1) Steal like an Artist

> All advice is autobiographical

• …when people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past.

> Nothing is original

• All creative work build on what came before. Nothing is completely original.

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.
— André Gide

• If we are free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running away from it.

> The genealogy of ideas

• Every new idea is just a mashup or remix of one or more previous ideas.
• You are a mashup of what you choose to let into your life.
• You are the sum of your influences.

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
— Goethe

> Garbage IN, Garbage OUT

• Hoarders collect indiscriminately. Artists collect selectively.
• Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.

> Climb your own family tree

• A good method to study:
  • Pick a thinker (writer, artist, activist, role model) you love and study everything there is to know about that thinker.
  • Then find free people that thinking loved, and study everything about them.
  • Repeat as many times as you can. Climb up the tree as far as you can go.
  • Once you build your tree, it’s time to start your own branch.
• The great thing about dead or remote masters is that they can’t refuse you as an apprentice.

> School yourself

• School is one thing. Education is another. The two don’t always overlap. It’s always your job to get yourself an education.
• 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.

> Save your thefts for later

• Carry a notebook, a pen with you.
• Jot down thoughts, observations, favourite passages out of books, record overheard conversation, doodle…
• Something worth stealing → put it in the swipe file.
• Need a little inspo → open the swipe file.

2) Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started

> Make things, know yourself

• It’s in the act of making things and doing our work that we figure out who we are.

You’re ready. Start making stuff.

• Imposter syndrome is real: “psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalise their accomplishments”.
  • Guess what, nobody knows what the hell they are doing, they just show up and do their thing.

> Fake it till you make it

• All the world is a stage.
• Pretend to be something until you really are.

> Start copying

• Everyone learns by copying.
• We are talking about practice, not plagiarism (=trying to pass someone’s else work off as your own)
• Copying is about reverse-engineering.

Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy, you’ll find your self.
— Yohji Yamamoto

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
— Salvador Dali

• First: figure out who to copy.

• Second: figure out what to copy.

• Who to copy: your heroes, people you love, people you’re inspired by, people you want to be.

  • Don’t steal from one of your heroes, steal from all of them.
  • “if you copy someone, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research.”

• What to copy:

  • you could copy their style or the thinking behind the style
  • but the most important by doing that is to get a glimpse into their minds
  • = internalise their way of looking at the world

> Imitation is not flattery

• Imitation your heroes ⇒ Emulating your heroes.
• Imitation = copy vs. Emulating : imitate + adapt/transform
• So: Copy your heroes.
  • Examine where you fall short. What’s in there that makes you different?
  • That’s what you should amplify and transform into your own work.
• Transforming your heroes’ work into something of your own is how you flatter them. It’s about adding your unique touch.

3) Write the book you want to read

> Write what you know LIKE

• Write the kind of story you like best. What would make a better story?
• The manifesto is:
  • 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 use.

Do the work you want to see done.

4) Use your hands

> Step away from the screen

• Motion kickstarts our brain into thinking.
• Analog tools back into the process can be a saviour. It feels more like play than work.
• Computers = editing ideas
  • vs. Real world = generating ideas
• Analog, then digital, then analog, then digital… a loop!
• If possible, have 2 workstations: one analog, one digital.

5) Side projects and Hobbies are important

> Practice productive procrastination

• Side projects, “messing around”, play…
• It’s great to have multiple projects going at once, you can bounce between them.

The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.
— Jessica Hische

• Take time to be bored: You get your best ideas when you’re bored, doing nothing.
• Take time to mess around: Get lost, wander.

> Don’t throw any of yourself away

• If you have multiple passions, don’t feel like you have to pick and choose between them.
  • “Let them talk to each other. Something will begin to happen.”
• A hobby is something creative that is just for you. You just do it because you are happy. It is something that gives but doesn’t take.
• Don’t worry about unity— what unifies your work is the fact that you made it.

6) The SECRET: Do good work and share it with people

> In the beginning, obscurity is good

• Enjoy your obscurity while it lasts. Use it.
• There is no pressure when you are unknown, you can do what you want, experiment, do things just for fun.

> The Not-so-Secret Formula

• Step one: DO GOOD work
• Step two: SHARE it with PEOPLE

→ There is no shortcut to the “do good work”, you’re going to suck. But you just have to keep trying, failing, showing up, getting better.

• Another way to put it:
  • Step 1: Wonder at something
  • Step 2: Invite others to wonder with you
  • Ideally, you’d wonder about things that not many people wonder about.

You don’t put yourself online only because you have something to say— you can put yourself online to find something to say.

“Having a container (i.e. online presence here) can inspire us to fill it”

• You don’t have to share everything, you can share a little bit of what you’re working on.
• Think about what you have to share that could be of some value to people.
• You have control over what you share and how much you reveal, you can share the dots without connecting them if you’d like.

7) Geography is no longer our master

> Build your own world

• You don’t have to live anywhere other than the place you are to start connecting with the world you want to be in.
• Build your own world around you with books and object you love.
• All you need is a little space and a little time.
• “I always carry a book, a pen, and a notepad, and I always enjoy my solitude and temporary captivity”

> Leave home

Distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.
— Jonah Lehrer

• At some point, when you can do it, you have to leave home. You can always come back, but you have to leave at least once.

“Your brain gets too comfortable in your everyday surroundings. You need to make it uncomfortable.
Travel makes the world look new, and when the world looks new, your brain works harder.“

• It helps to live around interesting people, and not necessarily people who do what you do.
• You have to find a place that feeds you—creatively, socially, spiritually and literally.

8) Be Nice. (the world is a small town.)

> Make friends, ignore enemies

• You’ve got to be kind. Say nice things about people.

> Stand next to the talent

• Remember “Garbage In, Garbage Out”
• You’re only going to be as good as the people you surround yourself with (digitally, it means people you follow)
• You will need:
  • Curiousity
  • Kindness
  • Stamina
  • A willingness to look stupid

Find the most talented person in the room, and if it’s not you, go stand next to him. Hang out with him. Try to be helpful.

• If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.

> “Quit picking fights and go make something”

Complain about the way other people make software by making software.
—Andre Torrez

> Write fan letters

• Public fan letters are great: 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 have asked, solve a problem for them, improve on their work, share it online.
• The important thing is that you show appreciation without expecting anything in return.

> Validation is for parking

• You cannot go looking for validation from external sources. Once you put your work in the world, you have no control over the way people will react to it.
• Get comfortable with being misunderstood, ignored, …

> Keep a praise file

• Life is a lonely business, often filled with discouragement and rejection.
• Use it sparingly, don’t get lost in past glory, but keep it around for when you need the lift.

9) Be boring. (it’s the only way to get work done)

> Take care of yourself (health)

> Stay out of debt

It’s not about how much money you earn, it’s about the money you hold onto.

> Keep your day job

• Freedom from financial stress also means freedom in your art.
• A day job puts you in the path of other human beings.
• The worst thing a day job does is take time away from you, but it makes up for that by giving you a daily routine in which you can schedule a regular time for your creative pursuits.
• Establishing and keeping a routine can be even more important than having a lot of time.
• The trick is to find a day job that pays decently, doesn’t make you want to vomit, and leave you with enough energy to make things in your spare time. Good day jobs aren’t necessarily easy to find, but there are out there.

> Get yourself a calendar

• Amassing a body of work or building a career is a lot about the slow accumulation of little bits of effort over time.
• A calendar helps you plan work, gives you concrete goals, and keeps you on track.
• Get a calendar, fill the boxes, don’t break the chain.

> Keep a logbook

• It doesn’t have to be a journal or diary, can be more generic and scrappy.
• Ask yourself “What’s the best thing that happened today?”
• You can log the positive, the negative too, but never forget the positive.

> Marry well

• Who you marry is the most important decision you’ll ever make.
• A good partner keeps you grounded.
• It’s not only your life-partner but all the people you choose to have around you.

10) Creativity is subtraction

> Choose what to leave out

• The people who get ahead in this era of information overload, are the people who figure out what to leave out, so that they can focus on what’s really important to them.
• Nothing is more paralysing than the idea of limitless possibilities.
• The idea that you can do anything is absolutely terrifying.
• Don’t make excuses for not working—make things with the time, space, and materials you have, right now.

“Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colours in the palette, anything you want — that just kills creativity.”
—Jack White

• “there are definite dangers in thinking you can do everything”
• “it’s often what an artist chooses to leave out that makes the art interesting, what is not shown vs. what is.”
  • ⇒ it’s the same for people: what makes us interesting isn’t just what we have experienced, but also what we haven’t experienced.
  • ⇒ it’s the same about work: you must embrace your limitations and keep moving.
• “in the end, creativity isn’t just the things we choose to put in, it’s the things we choose to leave out.”