Get creative and start making stuff

An inspiration of Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon on getting creative ideas

Photo by Kevin Jarrett on Unsplash

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For the past couple of months, I've been experimenting with friend-catcher ideas that I want to share to connect with like-minded people and engage with them in conversations online.

Inspired by @austinkleon's Steal Like an Artist, I noted some ideas from the advice in the book. And in case you haven't had a chance to read it, it is a super fun, actionable & short read that can give you lots of goodies to take home.

Stand on the shoulders of giants

Don't reinvent the wheel and embrace influence. Remix previously liked ideas and be selective about what you consume. Don't hoard shit and only collect and think about ideas that speak to your soul, things you resonate with and make you curious.

Take your time. Your brain isn't a warehouse to store shit in. Take your time with ideas and write about them from your own head. Learn to think for yourself. Organize your thinking and go deeper on subjects you love

To go deeper, use the Shepardizing concept from the law field. When a judge writes a decision, they drop footnotes and what you're supposed to do as a good lawyer is look up the footnotes and search them in other articles 3–4 levels deep. So reading something and looking up its references and reading those with their own references until you learn enough about a subject or prove a point you want to make

Get started as soon as possible

Most learning happens after you start. Making creative things and sharing them with the world makes you intimate with yourself. You will understand yourself better. When you show up every day, things will happen for you eventually, be patient. If you want to get into something you don't know how to do, do it anyway and share your process of learning. You will make friends along the way and learn a lot faster

Write the story you want to read

"If there's a book you want to read, but hasn't been written yet you must write it." Toni Morrison

Ask yourself, what would make a better story? Expand on your idols' thoughts and make the sequels they never made. Have they missed anything? Can you make it better?

Get your hands dirty

Online work is intangible so use your hands to do things that get you physically involved in the process of making: write with pen and paper, draw, sketch, paint & doodle. Start analog & finish digital.

Building Side projects and hobbies

Break things & share the process, it'll take your learning and practice to the next level. It's ok to play with multiple things & manage multiple projects but the secret is to leave breadcrumbs so you can pick up where you left off when you come back after a while. 

Get bored and reflect, go on an artist date with yourself, take long walks, iron your shirts and do the dishes. It will help you think. If you love multiple disciplines, try to marry them and join them together

Hobbies & side projects are so good, they give but don't take

The power of giving gifts

No one cares unless your work is good so use social media to practice giving good gifts and good work. Teach everything you know because the upside of that is huge especially when starting out. Your audience is forgiving and you can get better along the way. Things change when people pay attention and especially when you take money from them, they won't be so forgiving then.

There is no doubt that the work you put out, in the beginning, won't be any good but show up anyway and stick to it. Open-source your knowledge because when you do, you learn, you'll find things to steal. the benefit is mutual.

You're not online because you have something to say but because you want to find your voice. Use the internet not only for publishing finished work but to test and play with ideas.

Geography is no longer our master

Join book clubs, discord servers and online meetups. I personally found a group of friends online to bounce ideas off of weekly. They keep me accountable and they're honest with me if I'm lagging behind. 

Travel, if you can, and learn about other cultures and taste their good food. Travel makes the world look new, it's so good for creativity. Seek bad weather as it leads to better art. 

Interact not only with people who agree with you and who are in the same domain as you but with people who have different ideas and work in completely different domains. Good conversations to steal from.

Be kind, don't expect anything from others and keep a praise file

Harold Ramis' rule for success: "Find the most talented person in the room, and if it's not you, go stand next to them, hang out with her and try to be helpful. If you are the most talented, find another room" 

Channel anger into writing, drawing, coding. "complain about people making software by making software" - Andre Torrez

"The best way to get approval is to not need it" 

If you truly love somebody's work, you shouldn't need a response or validation from them. But still, write public fan letters or make something and dedicated to them.

Validation is for parking

If you wait for validation, by the time you get it, you'll be too bored or dead. Don't expect anything from anyone. Once you're published there's no control on how people will react to your work and there's no reason to stress about it. 

Really good work appears effortless, people will ask "why didn't I think of that?". They won't see sweat, blood & tears that went into making it. 

Not everybody will get it or like it and that's okay, people misinterpret, they might call you names cancel you for it. Be comfortable with being misunderstood, the trick is being too busy to care.

Keep a praise file

When people do say nice things about your work, save it. It will help you when you are stuck or blocked. Often times dark days hit right after you put something good that catches on and you are getting attention. Your praise file will help you then.

Take care of yourself

Being creative is hard work. Do yourself a favor and do more breakfasts, pushups, burpees and long walks

Finance your own creative work

It'll probably take you a while to figure it out, keep your day job, your art will thank you for it. A job pays you and connects you to the world through a routine. Keep in mind that it's going to suck until you get back to the flow state. when in the groove, figure out what time you can carve out and steal and stick to your routine even if it kills you

Get yourself a calendar

Amassing a body of work is a slow accumulation. Small bets that compound over time. Stick to a routine of writing 500–1000 words per day, it will add up quickly and it will make you more familiar with yourself. 

"Get a wallpaper year calendar and put a big fat X on the days you complete your writing. After a few days, you'll have a chain that you won't want to break." - Jerry Seinfeld

Keep a logbook

What's the best thing that happened today? Reflect on the day, week and month to write about things you wouldn't otherwise think about. Keep a chart of past events just to remember what you worked on, on a particular day. The little things will help you remember the big things. 

Elimination helps creativity

"Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away." ~Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

Can you go without consumption for a week? What about a couple of days? No news, no books, no podcasts & no screens whatsoever. Take the time to write, listen to music, get bored and reflect on your plan and what you want to do. Avoid the analysis paralysis and understand the paradox of choice and why more is actually less. 

Work with what you already have and see what you can come out with. The new rules of no new media consumption can lead to your best work. Dr. Seuss wrote the cat in the hat with only 236 different words. An editor bet him he couldn't write it with 50 words only DrSeuss came back with "green eggs and ham" one of the best-selling books of all time.