10 Ideas Stolen from STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST
10 ideas I stole from the classic book Steal Like An Artist - 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon.
1. 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." -T.S. Eliot
"The only art I'll ever study is stuff that I can steal from." -David Bowie
"There is nothing new under the sun." -The Bible
"What is originality? Undetected plagiarism." - William Ralph Inge
"It is better to take what does not belong to you than let it lie around neglected." -Mark Twain
2. Don't wait until you know who you are to get started.
Start making stuff. Fake it 'til you make it. Start out as a phony and become real.
"Start copying what you love. At the end of the copy you will find yourself." -Yohji Yamamoto
Even The Beatles started as a cover band.
Steal from all of your heroes, not just one of them. Stealing from many people is research, stealing from one is plagiarism.
"If you rip off a hundred people, everyone will say you are so original." -Gary Panter
3. Write the book you want to read.
"My interest in making music has been to create something that does not exist that I would like to listen to." -Brian Eno
Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, build the products you want to use, do the work you want to see done.
4. Use your hands.
"We don't know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops." -John Cleese
"I have stared long enough at the glowing screens. Let's give more time for doing things in the real world: plant a plant, walk the dogs, read a real book, go to the opera." -Edward Tufte
5. Side projects and hobbies are important.
The side projects that you thought was just messing around is actually the magic stuff. Don't throw any of yourself away. Keep all your passions in your life. Get lost. Wander. You never know where it's going to lead you.
"You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards." -Steve Jobs
6. Do good work and share it with people.
"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." -Howard Aiken
7. Geography is no longer our master.
It helps to live around interesting people, and not necessarily people who do what you do.
8. Be nice.
"There's only one rule I know of: You've got to be kind." -Kurt Vonnegut
Stand next to the talent. You're only going to be as good as the people you surround yourself with. Follow the best people online, the people who are smarter, better and doing more interesting work. Pay attention to what they are talking about, what they are doing, what they are linking to.
Validation is for parking. You can't go looking for validation from external sources. Once you put your work into the world, you have no control over the way people will react to it. Life is a lonely business, often filled with discouragement and rejection. It's still a tremendous boost when people say nice things about your work.
"Modern art = I could do that + Yeah, but you didn't." -Craig Damrauer
9. Be boring.
"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work." -Gustave Flaubert
Burn slow. Take care of yourself. Stay out of debt. Keep your day job.
Get a calendar. Fill the boxes. Don't break the chain.
10. Creativity is subtraction.
The way to get over creative block is to place some constraints on yourself. Start a business without any start-up capital. Write a book in a day. Shoot a movie with your iPhone. Make things with the time, space, and materials you have, right now.
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