The Three Best Books To Be More Creative
I'm a book nerd. A complete and total lover of books. And while sometimes I crave nothing more than to dive into a fantastical piece of fiction which allows me to escape my day-to-day life and get lost in someone else's world, others I love to learn from the masters and read books that make me think and expand my view of the world.
Books focused on creativity do just that - shift my perspective and change the way I view my own creativity.
The one thing that is the worst for creating? Constant hustling. The best? Sitting around bored and doing nothing. The second best? Reading a book about giving myself space to create for creation's sake.
Here are three authors who have kicked my ass to create, and will hopefully help you do the same!
Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
Here's what I learned: Sit down and do the work. Whatever temptations might feel really important, aren't. Sit down at your desk every single day and write or paint or design or create - whatever your creation looks like. Get to work every day - so that you can fight off "resistance" whose only goal is to keep you from your work, and you can be ready for the moments when the muse comes to visit you and magic is birthed.
Here's what I learned: There are so many reasons to not get started or to feel afraid but you must get beyond your own fear or you will never do anything interesting. Creativity is always a gamble. Be willing to take risks. Stop giving your creativity a goal or trying to make it have value. Just create for the sake of it - with no goal and no purpose in mind. And certainly don't create to be validated by others (or to "help people"). Create for the simple sake of bringing to life what wants to be born.
Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist
Here's what I learned: If you steal from one person you are plagiarizing, if you steal from 50 you are an original. Nothing in life has not already been done. Nothing you think will be 100% original. But the way that you see the world and the way you express it can be uniquely yours. So put it out there anyway. Don't wait until you know who you are and are already an expert to get started. Part of knowing who you are comes from your creative process - and figuring out your voice along the way. Don't copy, but find your voice by collecting the many voices and creations of people you admire who you want to make a part of your own creative genealogy. Make your creativity a boring, routine, daily habit.