July 17, 2005
how to be creative (latest version)
[This is my latest rewrite of “How to Be Creative” [Older version is here]. 12,000 or so words, plus lots of cartoons. The book’s text will be quite short, divided into four parts, but there will be plenty of cartoons to look at, between 150 – 300 of them. The book proposal is here.]
“So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years.”
PART ONE: AN INTRODUCTION, OF SORTS.
Before we get started, three points:
1. “Creative” is one of those annoying words that means little, simply because it means so many different things to different people. I make no claim to have a better definition of “creative” than anyone else.
The best working definition of creative I have is “When work and play become the same thing”.
When that happens, you’re in flow. When you’re in flow, things are created.
Perhaps there are better definitions of “creative” out there. Does it matter? Not really. What matters is that you find your own definition. You don’t need mine. I don’t need yours.
2. The creative drive is like the sex drive. We all have it, and because what we do on this earth affects other people, we have to be careful what we do with it. Because to use it unwisely can screw up your life.
I am not here to tell you how to be more creative than you already are. God/The Universe/Whatever made you creative, just like he/she/it made all of us. Tapping into it is a personal journey– other people can only help you so much. That being said, I think once you’ve gotten the itch to do something creative, there are a lot of land mines and pitfalls that are best avoided. All I can do is tell you what has worked for me over time.
I used to associate “creativity” with all that youth-generated sexy stuff: fun, glamorous jobs, being hip, being artisitic and meeting women. As I get older and I see how the world is changing away from the Big Media Industrial Complex towards something much more personal, complicated and fractal, I start equating it more with mass economic survival.
3. Quitting your job at the phone company to become a musician is no different than quitting your job at the phone company to start your own accountancy firm. It’s just the human spirit trying to better itself. The difference between art and commerce is artificial. What matters is not what individual path you have chosen, but that you stay on it; that you become the person you were born to be.
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PART TWO: “HOW TO BE CREATIVE”:
[NB: The full version of this PART TWO is here. Over 10,000 words, 31 drawings etc. The shortened version appears below for reasons of space.]
So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:
1. Ignore everybody.
The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you. When I first started with the biz card format, people thought I was nuts. Why wasn’t I trying to do something more easy for markets to digest i.e. cutey-pie greeting cards or whatever?
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2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to change the world.
The two are not the same thing.
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3. Put the hours in.
Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort and stamina.
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4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.
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5. You are responsible for your own experience.
Nobody can tell you if what you’re doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is.
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6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “I
READ THIS POST!
Holy crap.
You’re not supposed to say things in all caps. I’ve avoided it pretty successfully up until now. My print shop teacher in high school once gave me some sage advice. “Over-emphasis is no emphasis,” he said. Sage advice then, sage advice no…
Dangerous stuff. You should charge for this, or people will think it’s worth what they paid for it.
Please write more!
I’m thinking this should maybe be titled, “How to *Handle* Creativity”
Then you could write “How to Be Creative” and describe not the process, but the contents: Truth and lies, conflict and harmony, predictability and surprise, change and constancy, goals and strategies, form and function.
No, he shouldn’t charge for this. This is the type of thing that could potentially make the world a lot better than it is. Help for humankind should have no barriers to entry!
I wanted to first reply “You are a God” impulsively, but that’s certainly not it. Nevertheless, you are certainly more enlighten than I, and are further down what looks like a similar path to mine.
Your knowledge is precious to me, I need some time to meditate on your updated essay.
Making money v.s. living fully. Are the two somehow compatible?
“Meaning Scales”
Finding and discovering meaning and context with tags. On the fly tagging is important because with many new ideas (half-bakeded ones), it is difficult to explain them. Simple tagging is a method to informally describe something in our own words. Foll
What you speak of is exactly what I’ve struggled with for the last few years. I graduated college in ’96 and nine years later I’ve awaken myself to the question, “Where the hell did those nine years go?”
The feelings are overwhelming at times, but I’ve been wanting to find my creative self and let it go. I finally decided that I might never make money doing what I love, but having a job helps me accomplish those things I love doing.
Keep on writing. It struck a cord with me.
who knew it would pay to be unsettling?
viva la “pissed off”!
I miss New York, and I’ve never even lived there. Chicago will do for now, I suppose.
Hugh — you’ve done it again, you monkeyfucker you. =)
Is it depressing that your musings on post-30 life remind me of my own? (at the tender age of 25)
A truly inspiring view of the world.. I mean New York. It makes me feel like I could do anything possible.
Thanks for showing me the Door.
Keep it going.
Booody boody boody boody
i love ur work.
I’m not into business or art or anything else this can relate to, but much of what you have written here I think can apply to life as a whole, and it was very interesting to read and gave me something to think about.
thx
PS. I dont like your art but I don’t think you care whatever. And that’s good.
“The difference between art and commerce is artificial.”
If so, then it would seem that the products of artistic activity are, in essence, economic goods. Have I understood this statement correctly?