Keep Going, by Austin Kleon →

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Austin Kleon wrote “Steal Like an Artist and Showed Your Work!” where he told his readers how to unlock their creativity by using their hero’s work as springboards. His latest book, “Keep Going, 10 Ways to Stay Creative In Good Times and Bad”, continues to encourage us. He says the creative life involves finding a daily routine suggesting, like the message from the movie Groundhog Day, that today is the only day we have.

The author tells us to disconnect from the world to connect with ourselves and work as though there’s no success or failure; there’s just the work to be done. Find a “sacred” place and time for doing your job. Forget about being an artist and living up to the image. Instead, do the work.

The book contains examples of just doing the work and straightforward advice. 

An excellent small book for creative minds.

Quotes

“Don’t wait until you know who you are to start.”

“Creativity is about connections; connections are not made by spinning everything off into its own space. Interesting juxtapositions form new ideas, and interesting juxtapositions happen when things are out of place.” 

“Drawing is simply another way of seeing, which we don’t do as adults,” says cartoonist Chris Ware. We’re all going around in a “cloud of remembrance and anxiety,” he says, and the act of drawing helps us live in the moment and concentrate on what’s really in front of us.” 

“If you draw,” said the cartoonist E. O. Plauen, “the world becomes more beautiful, far more beautiful.”