Title Keep Going

Author Austin Kleon

Year Published 2019

Kind of Book  Creative Process/How-To

How strongly I recommend it 7/10 

My Impressions This is a book about the boring, repetitive, annoying aspects of being an artist.  Kleon meditates on the balance between working to feed your belly and working to feed your soul. The book offers a compilation of quotes by famous artists distilled down into 10 lessons to the modern artist to keep going when things get tough.

Date Read April 2021

Practical Takeaways

  • Take what you need and leave the rest

  • Take it one day at a time

  • "Make the most beautiful thing you can. Try to do that everyday"-Laurie Anderson

  • Pretend you're starring in Groundhog Day. What would you do?

  • do our best to live one day at a time."-Richmond Walker (Twenty-Four Hours a Day)

  • Establish a daily routine

  • Every day

  1. Hear a little song

  2. Read a good poem

  3. See a fine picture

  4. Speak a few reasonable words

-Geothe

  • Don't just borrow someone else's daily routine and expect it to work for you

  • Avoid writing in the afternoon if possible ("I detest this mongrel time, neither day nor night.")-Charles Dickens

  • Make lists when you're feeling anxious-Mary Roach

  • When you're feeling overwhelmed make a list of everything on your mind you need to do, pick the most pressing thing and do it

  • Make a to-learn list with everything you want to learn that day-Leonardo da Vinci

  • Finish every day and be done with it-Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • When the sun goes down and you look back on the day, go easy on yourself. Make a list of anything you did accomplish

  • Get into the world to have something to say about it and isolate yourself from it in order to say it-Tim Kreider

  • Create bliss station/bliss hour: a room or a certain hour of day where you don't know what is in the newspapers, you don't know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody, you don't know what anybody owes to you.-Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth)

  • Just read the Sunday paper every day for you news, don't read/watch it daily

  • Have your phone is a different room while you sleep

  • Don't turn on your phone upon waking in the morning

  • "Keep away from ads and idiots and movie stars"-Dorothea Tanning

  • (the first rule of writing) apply ass to chair-Austin Kleon's writing teacher

  • Put a giant "No" sign on your phone to remind yourself to protect your writing time-Oliver Sacks

  • Let go of the thing you're trying to be (the noun eg. Writer) and do the work (the verb eg. Writing)

  • Make a piece of art and then burn it -Kurt Vonnegut

  • "Try to do some BAD work—the worst you can think of.."-Sol LeWitt

  • Focus on making art not money ("God walks out of the room when you're thinking about money.")-Quincy Jones

  • Don't think you need to turn your hobby into a side hustle or your profession

  • If something makes you spiritually alive, don't think you need to turn it into a job that keep you literally alive

  • "Resist the urge to monetize every single bit of your creative practice. Be sure there's at least a tiny part of you that's off-limits to the marketplace."

  • If you do what you love make sure you have a low overhead (Do what you love + low overhead=good life Do what you love + "I deserve nice things"=a time bomb)

  • "Follow your dreams, but right up to the point where they become your job, and then run in the other direction."-David Rees

  • Don't let the response something gets online (twitter, instagram, youtube) be the only thing that determines what you work on next. Do what your heart wants to do too

  • Increase the time between posting something and checking for feedback eg. Post something and don't check the response for a week

  • When you're feeling down, make something for someone in your life

  • Stare at a piece of artwork for an entire hour-Peter Clothier

  • Pay attention to what you pay attention to-Amy Krouse Rosenthal

  • Reread your diary/journal entries to discover what you pay attention to

  • If your art is adding net misery to the world, walk away and do something else

  • Don't rule out quitting if you're not up to the work-Mike Birbiglia

  • Be smart enough to know how dumb you are and have the courage to carry on anyway. (dunning-Kruger prayer)

  • Don't argue with strangers on the internet

  • Hang out with people who when you say something think about it rather than just simply react-Alan Jacobs

  • Read books of the past-C.S. Lewis

  • Read old books

  • Keep your tools tidy and your material messy ie. Keep your tools where you can find them, but let your materials cross-pollinate in a mess-John T. Unger

  • (writer's block) When you're stuck, tidy up

  • Keep the place where you create messy

  • Don't equate productivity and creativity

  • Take naps (to aid creativity)-William Gibson

  • Leave things better than you found them

  • Walk (to aid creativity)

  • Walk (to dispel daily depression)-Vivian Gornick

  • Get outside every day

  • Take time out for reflection

Big Ideas

  • The creative life is not linear. It's not a straight line from point A to point B. It's more like a loop, or a spiral, in which you keep coming back to a new starting point after every project.

  • Any person can make it through one day. It is when we start thinking about the future (ie. Eternity) that we give up.

  • Having a schedule defends us against chaos

  • We have to immerse ourself in the world to have something to say

  • We must isolate ourselves from it in order to say what we have to say

  • Creative ideas come from boredom, uncertainty, and creativity

  • The creative process is good for the soul

  • When you are focused on money and not the art it loses its sacredness

  • With the loss of secure jobs we've become accustomed to thinking of our hobbies as potential income streams

  • One of the easiest ways to hate something you love is to turn it into your job

  • If you do what you love and keep your overhead low, things will be great

  • If you do what you love and DON'T keep your overhead low, things will go poorly

  • Being able to hold two opposed ideas in your mind at the same time and still function is a sign of first-rate intelligence- F. Scott Fitzgerald

  • A cluttered desk/room/house is an external representation of a cluttered mind

  • Creativity and productivity are often at odds with each other.

  • You're often most creative when you're least productive

  • Tidying up is a form of productive procrastination

 

Unknown Terms

The Dunning-Kruger Prayer: Let me be smart enough to know how dumb I am and give me the courage to carry on anyway.