(Part 2) Best books about creativity according to redditors
We found 2,488 Reddit comments discussing the best books about creativity. We ranked the 461 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Usually when I am low on energy it is because I am discontent/depressed/unhappy with my life. If you do a good number of these and still have low energy, go see a doctor.
Hope this helps.
EDIT: Thanks for the gold and the /r/bestof! I am super excited.
EDIT2: I totally forgot sleep. Sleeping until you wake up naturally is the best, but if you can't do that, I'm a big fan of sleep apps that use your phone's accelerometer to wake you during light sleep, like Sleep As Android.
Available for purchase here: http://amzn.com/1495337111
I think it's a couple dollars cheaper if you have Amazon Prime.
EDIT: I also have this available as a .PDF if you want to print if off yourself and color: http://www.peterdraws.com/shop/between-the-lines-e-book
I have always lurked reddit untill now and love colouring, these are images stolen from this book http://www.amazon.com/Between-Lines-Expert-Level-Coloring/dp/1495337111/ref=pd_sim_b_5/175-7254389-0545460?ie=UTF8&refRID=1W7X22MX6YJ4KCYPRAEM
Not only are humans horrible at remembering, they can also be horrible at seeing. Take a look at this clip Selective attention test
EDIT: The Invisible Gorilla is a pretty interesting book about how your brain fools you
I'm in a similar stage as your daughter. I moved to a new city to take a job right out of college. I moved with a friend of mine who left me stranded after 2 months, shortly after that my long distance girlfriend broke up with me. I've been sad and alone for the last 3 months and I'm trying to improve my situation.
I picked up a copy of The 20-Something Manifesto It's full of stories about people making the transition from childhood to adulthood. Most of them really speak to me and it feels like they know exactly what I'm thinking all the time.
I also snagged This Book Will Change Your Life This book is full of tasks which challenge social norms. This book gives me ideas of fun things to do to put me outside of my comfort zone and see what else life has to offer.
Know your fears - this is something I took from twyla tharp's incredible book the creative habit. In the book, which you should absolutely read, she talks about fears, and then, in an act of incredible courage, writes all of her personal artistic fears right there on the page for the world to see. (Her fears are, "1. People will laugh at me. 2. Someone has done it before. 3. I have nothing to say. 4. I will upset someone I love. 5. Once executed, the idea will never be as good as it is in my mind.")
I'm so grateful for her articulating those, because it allowed me to see the incredible power of simply setting your fears down on paper and understanding them. I realized that my own fears, which are different from hers have been dramatically impacting my behavior. Just by putting them down, they lose a smidge of their power, because you begin to see the logical flaws in your subconscious reasoning. (Incidentally, in the spirit of Twyla's honesty, my fears are: that my writer friends and mentors will read something I wrote and decide that I am a weaker writer than they thought; that my manager and agent will read my work and take me less seriously; that the next script will not help me move forward in my career, that I'll stall and lose my job and get fired; that I will have to move my wife back into a shitty living situation when we can't make rent.)
Action item: find a blank page. Write: "I'm afraid of..." and then keep your pen moving. When you get stuck, re-write, "I'm afraid of..." and take a different tack. Think about writing whatever you're procrastinating on right now, and the weird feeling in your gut that appears that's stopping you from working. Dig into it. "I'm afraid of..."
If it helps, you can burn or shred this page later.
Then, maybe later on, distill what you've written down into a few bullet points. Maybe you'll do this once, or maybe you'll come back to this exercise over and over as you write and discover more about yourself and what's actually motivating you.
welcome and embrace your fears. this is something I've distilled from a lifetime of reading Buddhist psychology and philosophy. A great introduction to the concept, though, would be Fear by the Vietnamiese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. The point here is that when you think about writing, or sit down to write, and find yourself encountering writers block, instead of just pushing past it, you want to sit back a moment and say, "I know there is this fear in me. I've seen this before, I've written it down." Then, instead of fighting it, you just sit with it a while and don't try to change it. Eventually, you can even come to take care of it, and take care of the wounded part of you that is causing the fear.
action item: when you find yourself procrastinating or experiencing writer's block, stop a moment, and say: "I'm experiencing a fear right now. Hello fear, old friend, I see you in me." This is a better strategy than 'powering through' or watching youtube for 6 hours (my typical move).
bigger action item: beyond the scope of this post, but I've found the above is significantly easier if I've been meditating regularly for 15 minutes a day or longer. Google, search youtube, subscribe to headspace or calm. If you think this is hogwash, the best skeptics discussion of meditation is 10% happier by dan harris.
routine: this is the underlying premise of the creative habit, which gives it its title. The idea is, it's much easier to overcome initial resistance if you develop a routine you follow every day, and the routine ends with you beginning to work.
action item: cultivate the habit of writing every day. Cultivate additional little habits that trigger 'it's writing time', like lighting a candle, putting on your headphones, sitting in a specific room or at a specific table, whatever. Something along the lines of a free-throw shooter dribbling three times before every shot, sort of thing.
morning pages. This is from the book the artists way by julia cameron. The whole book is kind of an exploration of writer's block, in a sense; and it's full of very smart ideas and actionable suggestions on the subject. But the cream of her teaching is: write three handwritten pages of whatever every morning, or when you sit down to write. This little suggestion is truly life-altering -- I was extremely skeptical upon hearing this advice, and now I swear by it. It gives you a place to excise all the junk and demons floating around in your brain every day, kind of like being your own therapist. And it gets you in the habit of moving your pen, writing what comes out, and not self-censoring. It is a way to both strengthen your ability to start writing freely, and simultaneously weaken your fears, procrastination, and distracting surface emotions.
action item: cultivate the habit of writing 3 pages longhand every day. If you're really stuck, get the book and work her 12-week program, it will absolutely un-stuck you, guaranteed.
do the work: the last thing I want to put here is kind of self-evident, but it deserves saying anyway: when it's all said and done, you need to actually put your ass in the chair and start writing. It's like swimming: you can't get better at it by thinking about it strategically or theoretically; you need to put most of your effort into putting out pages. Especially when you're just starting out, the best thing you can do is do a huge volume of work. It's not going to be as good as you want to be at first; it's like that for everyone. You just need to fight through that and write more, and it absolutely will get better over time.
action item: put yourself on a deadline to finish one short every week or two weeks or something. Or one pilot or feature every three or four months. Commit to making mistakes as fast as possible, embrace that things will fall short of your aspirations at first, and just do as much volume as possible.
Hope this helps and I welcome any feedback.
I first ran into this idea reading The Artist's Way with an online group. It's one of the first regular disciplines she recommends to foster creativity.
Personally, it took me a long time to get comfortable with Daily Pages and to find a way to distinguish between them and "regular journaling". For a long, long time I tried to journal for three pages every morning, which was exhausting, took forever, and was emotionally difficult.
When I finally gave myself permission to just write whatever was in my head ... to do lists, random worries, rants, pretend arguments with people, whatever ... it became easier to build the discipline, and much more helpful to me.
The difference is that my daily pages help me figure out what's stealing my attention (things I worry about, relationships that need tending to, etc.) , but that I might be avoiding, or even unaware of. Letting my messy and less formed thoughts out on the page often reveals to me what I'm neglecting in my life. And yes, sometimes that is my grocery list and meal plan for the week. Other times it's bigger issues about my health or my family. If I just let it be the stream-of-consciousness brain dump that I intend it to be, it can be quick and fairly easy to do. Just let it flow.
Journaling, the conscious act of trying to write focused ideas on a particular subject, is most useful to me when I need to figure out a next step, or unravel what I'm really feeling and thinking about something. It requires more effort and focus on my part, and potentially could span several "sessions", but almost always ends with a sense of purpose and clarity.
I guess what I am trying to say is "Don't cross the streams." Daily Pages are a discipline of writing 3 (or whatever you choose) pages of what's on your mind. No more. No less. Garbage and all. Journaling (for me) is writing until the thing is resolved (to some reasonable degree) and that takes whatever number of pages and minutes it takes.
And to tie this back to Notebooks, my Daily Pages notebooks are usually cheap and I'll test various pens and inks or just use a daily carry G-2 ... whatever. My journals are my "good" notebooks. I use my favorite pens and inks. Heck, even my penmanship is better in my journals. (Chicken scratch is not only OK in my Daily Pages, it's practically required)
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
It's putting me on a path that may not align with the RE of FIRE, but is slowly stepping me towards things I enjoy. Do I really enjoy being a hardware engineer in industry? No. Can I use the tenets of FIRE to manage my money to allow for a more flexible and enriching life? Yes! And I'm mid-plan on executing that change which was crafted d during the 12 weeks of working through this book.
EDIT: I also did the Marie Kondo tidying during this stage so that helped too!
>Where do I look for her passions?
I don't think you can. A person has to discover their own passions. All you can do is nudge it along by letting kids try a lot of different things and encourage them along when/if the going gets tough.
Some people never find their passion, or they're unwittingly discouraged away from it.
You might find this book interesting: http://www.amazon.com/The-Element-Finding-Passion-Everything/dp/0143116738/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
The Aesthetic of Play:
Play takes place in the mind of the player. The book offers heuristics for analyzing the playfulness of a game. This allows you to create intrinsically engaging games – playful games.
Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach:
Games are essentially systems – parts that interact with each other in complex ways that generate interesting gameplay. You will learn to observe systems, and start to see them everywhere. You will also learn to create them, harnessing complexity and emergence.
Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques:
Not a game design book, but it greatly improved my ability to think creatively, come up with non-obvious solutions, and alter my daily life mindset towards ordinary things. Which is relevant to designing games.
Not only that, he is the guy who lobbied and blackmailed the US government into giving subsidies for his railroad and public utility companies. Free money that we paid as taxpayers and that Buffet received it and declared it as profit. Read Free Lunch by David Johnston. The book has a chapter on Buffet.
the book
I've been in a life that was basically shit. This book helped me more than anything else, The Gifts of Imperfection. Also meditation is free and does wonders. Check out The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. These two books really changed my life and helped me dig myself out of a state of deep depression. Another thing you should check out CBT therapy and read anything about neuroplasticity.
There are good explanations for why thousands of people would testify to miracles in group settings..dealing with basic human psychology, group dynamics, memory contamination, etc. People can whip themselves up into a euphoric frenzy, interpreting mundane events as supernatural ones, especially when "primed" to do so by those surrounding them or a charismatic leader..and the simple act of sharing memories with others can literally alter the memory of your audience. People literally borrow memories from one another without realizing it. For more on this and other strange phenomena about human psychology, check out The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us
As for the question of believing in miracles on the basis of stories, I highly recommend this book which I think makes a very powerful case against believing in things like the resurrection on the basis of testimony. And if Christians do want to believe it after reading this book, they will be forced to accept that they have an inconsistent standard of evidence, since they dismiss claims from competing/incompatible religions that are much better attested and have a much more reliable chain of evidence.
It was a similar boat for me, but all one can do is move forward. You should read Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, by Stephen Nachmanovitch. Before I was even diagnosed, it helped me through a very tough time in my life. A wonderful book for inspiring creativity and new chapters in life.
Here is an excellent story from the introduction:
> A New Flute
> A new flute was invented in China. A Japanese master musician discovered the subtle beauties of its tone and brought it back home, where he gave concerts all around the country. One evening he played with a community of musicians and music lovers who lived in a certain town. At the end of the concert, his name was called. He took out the new flute and played one piece. When he was finished, there was silence in the room for a long moment. Then the voice of the oldest man was heard from the back of the room: "Like a god!"
> The next day, as this master was packing to leave, the musicians approached him and asked how long it would take a skilled player to learn the flute. "Years," he said. They asked if he would take a pupil, and he agreed. After he left, they decided among themselves to send a young man, a brilliantly talented flautist, sensitive to beauty, diligent and trustworthy. They gave him money for his living expenses and for the master's tuition, and sent him on his way to the capital, where the master lived.
> The student arrived and was accepted by his teacher, who assigned him a single, simple tune. At first he received systematic instruction, but he easily mastered all the technical problems. Now he arrived for his daily lesson, sat down, and played his tune—and all the master could say was, "Something lacking." The student exerted himself in every possible way; he practiced for endless hours; yet day after day, week after week, all the master said was, "Something lacking." He begged the master to change the tune, but the master said no. The daily playing, the daily "something lacking" continued for months on end. The student's hope of success and fear of failure became ever magnified, and he swung from agitation to despondency.
> Finally the frustration became too much for him. One night he packed his bag and slinked out. He continued to live in the capital city for some time longer, until his money ran dry. He began drinking. Finally, impoverished, he drifted back to his own part of the country. Ashamed to show his face to his former colleagues, he found a hut far out in the countryside. He still possessed his flutes, still played, but found no new inspiration in music. Passing farmers heard him play and sent their children to him for beginner's lessons. He lived this way for years.
> One morning there was a knock at his door. It was the oldest past-master from his town, along with the youngest student. They told him that tonight they were going to have a concert, and they had all decided it would not take place without him. With some effort, they overcame his feelings of fear and shame, and almost in a trance he picked up a flute and went with them. The concert began. As he waited behind the stage, no one intruded on his inner silence. Finally, at the end of the concert, his name was called. He stepped out onto the stage in his rags. He looked down at his hands, and realized that he had chosen the new flute.
> Now he realized he had nothing to gain and nothing to lose. He sat down and played the same tune he had played so many times for his teacher in the past. When he finished, there was silence for a long moment. Then the voice of the oldest man was heard, speaking softly from the back of the room: "Like a god!"
Lawrence Lessig is another good one...
His books Free Culture, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World, and Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy are all excellent books on the subject.
http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-16.html
Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity by Lawrence Lessig.
The first part of /u/YgramulTheMany's post, I agree with. I don't think that "zoning out" is conducive to good music-making, though. I once took a workshop from an improvising musician, Tatsuya Nakatani, who gave us an interesting idea for approaching "flocking" improvisation (where you follow what one or more other improvisers are doing, like a flock of birds): pick one of the other musicians that you're playing with and pretend you're them. You still make music on your own instrument, but you're trying to get your brain to believe that what you're doing on your instrument is actually what the target musician is doing on their instrument. It sounds a little bizarre, but the results were astounding. When I tried it, I completely locked in to the directionality of what the other musician was playing, and so what I was doing lined up astoundingly well with what he was doing, with barely any delay between us. It almost felt like telepathy.
Practicing meditation helps, because it helps you get into the improvisational mindset in every moment of your life, and when you're that practiced at it, you can just drop into it and out of it at will.
I also have to suggest reading Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch. Of the many excellent books on improvisation that I've read, this one's the best, and especially suitable for what you're looking for since it deals with the nature of improvising mind and how to get there. It's literally life changing.
There's a book called "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)" by David Cay Johnston which talks about this kind of business.
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Lunch-Wealthiest-Themselves-Government/dp/1591841917/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207857662&sr=8-1
It's a fantastic read, and covers a lot more than just this type of fraud..
Ah man, seeing her share her copy of this book on instagram was a little too perfect.
Yes, a lot, for various definitions of "easily accessible".
Let's first assume, you have some kind of academic education or background. In this case, you're like most psych students who would usually start with a text book. I'm not an English speaker, so my experience is limited (and outdated). However, a quick search leads me to suggest:
Of course, textbooks are not what a friend of mine would call "bathtub books". They need to be read with attention and dedication. The advantage is that you get a comprehensive overview. Which might be what you want if you're considering to study psychology.
If you're looking for books that are closer to bookstore bestsellers, the problem is that there's too much one could recommend. Psychology is such a vast field, and most books only pick a few sections (often to sell the author's personal ideas).
Rather than trying to make specific recommendation for every possible topic, here's a very short introduction.
Basically, you can think about psychology as an apartment building with four main stories or floors.
Now, questions asked on one floor are obviously related to questions on other (lower) floors. People who work in the second floor may emphasize other approaches in the ground floor than people working in the first or third floor.
It's therefore helpful to also imagine that these floors are inhabited by different teams or coalitions of psychologists. Some teams are mostly situated in one or at most two floors. Others have apartments in all floors.
And, of course, the constellation keeps on changing. Some teams who once dominated one or more floors now find themselves with only a couple of apartments, and maybe the closet.
This is what happened to the team called "psychoanalysis" which was founded by people like Freud and Jung. It's probably fair to say that most psychologists today think that their work in the ground floor (the methodological floor) was not quite persuasive. Therefore I would advise against reading books by Freud or Jung, unless you're specifically interested in psychoanalysis, or the history of psychology.
Another team which once dominated the second floor, but mostly lost it again, is called behaviourism. Although their insights and methods are still in use, they stumbled due to a decision made in the ground floor (namely to reduce the second floor to a single apartment called 'behavior'). This turned out to be too cramped for most psychologists, so this aspect is nowadays mostly ignored.
Today, the second floor is mostly dominated and inhabited by cognitive psychology, I'd say. Unless, you have other interests, I recommend this one as a good place to start.
From there, it's easier to explore other floors. Going up to the third floor, for instance, you'll find it mostly dominated by social psychology (as least as far as the building called 'psychology' is concerned). Going down into the first floor, you'll find neuropsychology and evolutionary psychology; the latter still quite young and in some quarters still quite controversial.
That said, my standard recommendation for getting started in cognitive psychology is:
It's a fast tour through the basic sections of the (cognitive) mind – attention, perception, memory, judgment – and, more importantly, the many ways it goes wrong. Although it probably wasn't written to be a readable and short introduction to cognitive psychology, I think it works quite well as such.
After reading it, you should be able to ask a central and important question: If humans make so many mistakes, how can psychologists (in particular, but also scientists, in general) prevent making these themselves? This basic question brings you straight to the ground floor from which most of psychology's history can be understood.
Hope this helps.
Could be This Book Will Change Your Life. I own it, it's got a year's worth of daily tasks to perform.
Hope this is what you're looking for.
Very much in the same style as Effortless Mastery, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art by Stephen Nachmanovitch and The Inner Game of Music by Tim Galloway and Barry Green.
If you start to sort them, those three together probably go with Wooten's "Music Lesson", "Zen Guitar", and "The Musician's Way".
I came here to say this too. A friend who has written and published two memoirs keeps a notebook just for new ideas, If something occurs to her, out comes that notebook, then back it goes so she can get back on track.
And is there something else going on? The new story is always shiny, uncomplicated, not bogged down by the actual effort of making it happen. Being deep into the details of the second act is just not as sexy as fleshing out a new character or problem.
So part of the answer is just to do the work. Check out The War of Art or Do the Work by Steven Pressfield - two books that seriously pulled me out of depression and got me busting ass on my projects again.
Meditation in general is great for being more creative, since coming up with new ideas is something that can not be directly forced. I earn my living as an professional illustrator and I almost never come up with good ideas if I panic or start thinking about that I HAVE to come up with a good concept.
You CAN`T force good ideas, you can only "show up" each day and work hard, very similar to how you can´t force yourself to sleep or force yourself to relax. Meditation can teach you that the only thing you can do is "show up" and create the right circumstances, and then let go and watch the procress unfold. Creativity works in a very similar way.
Fear of failure is the biggest mental roadblock for any kind of creative endevour. Meditation will help you realize that your doubts and fears are just thoughts, illusions, mental constructs. Once you can see past of all that baggage, you can start truly being creative without losing all that energy to the useless friction and resistance.
I also highly recommend this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Do-Work-Steven-Pressfield/dp/1936719010
I'd been in serial long-term relationships from age 20 to 37, never really "dated" during that time. After my marriage ended at age 37, I had no idea how to date. So, I really didn't.
I had a few FWB on the side, for a little over a year (mostly guys I was friends with, or were friends of friends I'd met through some social circle). No serious relationships until I asked out a long-time friend & coworker who'd been single for about 6 months before I asked him out. I was nervous as shit (especially regarding dating a coworker) but 1.5 years later, it's the best relationship of my life.
I really don't think I could have been ready to get into a relationship with this guy, though, without the HARD work I did on my thinking & behavior. I read about a dozen books on relationships, happiness, self-compassion, self-acceptance, and getting over emotional abuse. My favorite books from this time are:
I guess I'd say... before you get into the dating scene, make sure that you have the confidence to be who you are, not who you think others want you to be so that they dont' turn you down. Be okay with people telling you no, and MORE IMPORTANTLY, be ok with telling someone else no or letting them down. Don't keep dating someone because you don't want to hurt their feelings, or they're too sweet, or whatever reason. Good luck out there.
> Okay, I just got to 2,800 words in this post in about half an hour I think.
Your post is 542 words long. How are you counting words? Or did I miss some reference?
To address your question: what /u/Forloveandmoney said and especially what /u/salamanderwolf said. There are notorious liars in this beat; we've even had one or two in this very subreddit. 5000 words per hour is not normal at all and in fact it's a selling point for this book which promises that you can reach this apparently unreachable target. Guess what: if it seems unreachable, it's not something most people are achieving every day, even taking the book's promise at face value.
Relax and write and try to enjoy it. :)
May I suggest you take a look at this post and its comments?
In particular, you might want to read my replies there since I felt the same way you do for a very long time.
You can get out of that state and learn to draw. It's totally doable.
Edit: also, I think a book like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain might help you.
The Bringhurst Bible
James Victore's book is amazing. It's a quick read but is packed with inspiration.
Envisioning Information is great for info design.
Megg's History of Graphic Design
The rest of these I haven't read yet, but here is a list of things I currently have on my amazon wish list:
Some People Can't Surf by Art Chantry
Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design by Jennifer Bass
Seventy-Nine Short Essays on Design by Michael Bierut
Damn Good Advice by George Lois
How To Be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy
How To Think Like A Great Graphic Designer by Debbie Millman
The Design of Dissent by Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic
Iron Fists: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian State by Steven Heller
Dorodango!
The rest of Olsen's site's pretty good too - he teaches art at an IB high school.
Another of my favorite bits of art theory/art history that also suggests a few different exercises comes from this overview of Picasso's bull series.
Also, read this book NOW and, if possible, get the kids to read it too. Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch. It's one of the best guides I know to creative processes in general, and you kind of pick up some art stuff by osmosis, just from the examples he uses.
Oh, and remember: art is NOT technique. Art is NOT representation. It's a search for significance.
Also
https://www.youtube.com/user/Palivizumab
His youtube channel, he has some cool videos showing his doodle process.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1495337111/ref=cm_sw_su_dp
His coloring book, using some selected drawings.
Don't listen to older people, actually... stop listen to anyone.
Recognize that the world is influencing you (more like brainwashing) from media to TV/movies, advertisement, politicians, religions... try to think as objectively as you can (practice critical thinking), look at reality for what it is: objective reality.
And you'll realize that you already know:
If you really want "advice":
> I know there are a lot of things that are bad (like the values)
you need to STOP talking this way. I understand that now, after having finished, you see something that you think needs improvements (like the values), but:
Keep on producing, and once something is done, it's done. Yes take stock of what to do next that's different, and even solicit critique from people that you trust (/r/learnart is a good forum IHHO), the most important part is to keep producing.
That is my criticism, I hope you found it constructive.
Bonus: one of the best books on Creativity that I have ever read https://www.amazon.com/Ignore-Everybody-Other-Keys-Creativity/dp/159184259X
I don't believe you need to sacrifice quality for quantity. Quite the opposite, in fact. The more you write, the better you get. A novel every two months may feel impossible to you right now. It certainly did to me when I started, especially since the first one took two years.
I intend to do a book a month for the next twelve months. The books I've written at this speed are selling extremely well, and all have a 4.3 average or higher across multiple platforms.
You'll note that one of these books is called 5,000 Words Per Hour. I've harnessed neuroscience to train myself to write faster, and the results have been amazing.
Want to hear something crazy? I'm middle of the road on production speed among the top selling authors I know. Amanda Lee puts out 2-3 full length novels a month.
You can argue that her books are crap, but I'd argue otherwise. They tell great stories and fans buy them in droves. We don't all have to be Patrick Rothfuss, and in fact can't be if we want to make a living.
Asimov wrote over 500 books in his lifetime. If you want to make a go at this, then odds are good you'll need to write faster than you currently believe you're capable of.
Before you discount what I have to say bear in mind that I put out 7 books in my first 14 months, and every last one has sold thousands of copies.
Also bear in mind that I have three editors and a great system for rotating through drafts. That's taken me a while to get down, and it's still a work in process. I also have an author assistant who takes care of a lot of day to day tasks.
On the flip side, I have a day job as the sole iOS developer at a startup so I'm working a more than full time job. I'm proof that anyone can do this, regardless of real life obligations.
http://www.amazon.com/000-Words-Per-Hour-Smarter-ebook/dp/B00XIQKBT8
It actually gets very easy after a while. Currently I write around 800 words in 15 minutes.
Learning the fundamentals of drawing can help with understanding the whole process. I am working my way through this book: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
It basically walks you thorough the concepts behind drawing and teaches you the principals of contour, negative space, etc.
It's written by an art professor and has projects throughout the book.
Art classes are great, but might be too costly. The book is nice because you can go at your own pace. I've found it to be extremely useful.
I believe that sums up Lawrence Lessig's argument for the past decade.
Art is something everyone loves, but artists are sometimes not held in the highest esteem due to eccentricities/lazy dispositions/delusions of grandeur/ etc. Some of the criticism is warranted and some of it isn't, but one thing I have come to realize it that being an artist is one of the hardest jobs around unless you are one of the 1/1,000,000 that just has that undeniable raw talent combined with some je ne sais quoi that people just gravitate towards and find irresistible.
For the rest of us, cultivation of our inner artist, practice, studying the past, learning from mistakes, and being honest with ourselves is important if we ever hope to progress. There are so many variables that play into this: what kind of art do you make? Is it for profit? Is it for self expression?
To make good art, you gotta become the artist that makes the art you love. You've probably heard the quote from Michelangelo, "I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free." in regards to his piece David, becoming the artist you are meant to be is a similar process. Sometimes it is about freeing yourself, finding yourself.
As a writer and a fashion designer, I sought education, I taught myself, I worked hard and practiced, I sought the advice of others...and I still wasn't able to properly express myself. At any moment, I felt like my heart could burst, nothing i did quenched my artistic thirst. Nothing was good enough.
I realized that my process was all wrong and that if an artists relies solely on their completed works, they will never find happiness. Something is always going to be left unsaid, no piece will every be finished perfectly, something to make it better will always be thought of later.
This book helped me tremendously r/https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252
It is a book that can teach you many things in regards to becoming the artist you want to be. It has themes that aren't for everyone (i'm not spiritual, and it does take it there at times) but they aren't overbearing and it is a little self-help-y. But anyway, I still recommend it as a tool to embracing your own work and growing as an artist. It is a 12 week program and has exercises to do and things like that.
Visual cognitive psychologist here. This work was actually done by Dan Simons, and refers to an effect known as "Change Blindness". Basically, when we're paying attention to something we fail to see things that are right in front of us. It's a beautiful example of how the world around us isn't actually what we see - there's simply too much information in an image received by our retinas for our brain to process. In order to deal with this challenge our mind has come up with "mental shortcuts" in order to make sense of the world. In this case, since we're so engaged in a task (i.e. counting the number of passes), we shift attentional resources that would otherwise allow us to "see" the gorilla enter the scene.
A better (and more recent) version of the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY - it includes some other types of changes, many of which even if you know about the Gorilla most people will fail to notice.
My personal favorite, which I use in a lot of instructional lectures as well, is "The Door Study" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWSxSQsspiQ - fun fact, this effect exists even when the confederates swap gender (i.e. a person is first confronted with a man, and then he is swapped out for a woman).
Also worth mentioning, Dan Simons wrote a book called "The Invisible Gorilla" aimed at explaining a lot of these kinds of phenomena towards the general public. If you find this kind of thing interesting, it's definitely worth checking out: http://www.amazon.com/The-Invisible-Gorilla-Intuitions-Deceive/dp/0307459667
Check out The Invisible Gorilla. It's more of a psychology book but it is about ways in which overconfidence affects behavior so it is very much applicable to economics and I found it very interesting and fun to read.
Cook through Julia Child's cook book. Once you are done throw a big party with all of your favorite dishes at it for your friends and family! :)
You could also take up lomography. It's very amazing and very creative. Lots of fun too. Just google it and you will see. It's a form of photography.
You could help out someone who is single with kids and not much time. You could cook for them, help the kids with homework, stuff like that. Think Mrs. Doubtfire.
Take up film making and screen writing. Write you own script and then film it. If it's a really great one you could have a local viewing of it and then maybe even send it into some festivals!
Buy a book entitled: This Book Will Change Your Life. It's a great way to add a bunch of variety to your life. I have it and I've got to say, it is amazing and a ton of fun. It will definitely be a great change in your life along with a great challenge. Here is a link for you to buy it! http://www.amazon.com/This-Book-Will-Change-Your/dp/0452284899/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310168300&sr=8-1
Another amazing book is Soul Pancake. It's written by Rainn Wilson. He plays Dwight on the office. He is beyond talented at what he does. Soul Pancake really is an extraordinary book. Link: http://www.amazon.com/SoulPancake-Chew-Lifes-Big-Questions/dp/1401310338/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310168501&sr=1-1
Make your own bucket list. Wait a week. Start doing everything on that list. Put things on it that are serious things like helping out the community through running a food drive to silly things like building bob barker's head out of lunch meat!
Do something that was on your husband's bucket list. Something that you know he wanted to do or would have wanted to do.
I lost my dad 5 years ago when I was 18. It's one of the things on my bucket list.
I got This Book Will Change Your Life for Christmas one year and it was pretty amusing. If I remember correctly, it even came with fake warning stickers to add to things. The premise was that it suggests a new activity for each day that can be accomplished with minimal materials.
One of the best things I heard when going to college for advertising was to think "What is the one thing that will get the audience you want to buy your product? Make that the focus." You're not going to come to that conclusion without researching. Find out the purpose of the product, the objective of the ad, the benefits the product has, the point of difference it has against competitors, the tone of the brand, the target audience, the target concern of that audience and then use all of that to solve a barrier that the audience or brand has. And if you really want to get creative read some of the many amazing advertising books out there when you are out of ideas. Good luck!
Goal planning depends on your values. Once you can verbalize your values then you'll be able to formulate your goals. That said these resources will help you with the next steps: Read Thinkertoys for an explanation of mind-mapping. GTD by David Allen. Get familiar with Evernote to keep you on track. Watch these for an explanation of how to synthesize the two. Read and watch all the Brian Tracy info you can get your hands on. Become proficient with these resources and you'll accomplish more than you ever dreamed possible
>Rick Santelli is a mouthpiece for the GOP
Actually he railed against Bush and the Republicans for their deficit spending and failed economic policies.. he and others like him have been a major thorn in the side of the GOP for years.
>Rick Santelli is a mouthpiece for the rich.
He opposed the bailouts that the rich pushed for, and he is opposing what the rich are asking for (raising the debt ceiling to kick the can down the road a bit longer). Who is getting rich off of the US going further into debt? The rich people who are making the loans, or the poor people? The fact is the rich have been getting richer off of the growth of government for decades and hire the best lobbyists to ensure that the politicians from both parties keep the gravy train flowing. They also control the media so they can convince the ignorant masses that adding more debt is the only solution.
>Rick Santelli is a mouthpiece for the whites.
Wait.. I missed where he said he supported the War on Drugs that the whites use to suppress minorities in the US. Or did you just play the race card because you disagree with him on the issue of raising the debt ceiling?
off the top of my head:
Meditations, with The Inner Citadel as a reader
Letters from a Stoic
A Guide to the Good Life by Irvine
Do The Work by Pressfield as well as The War of Art by Pressfield
Managing Oneself by Ducker
Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl
What Predicts Divorce by Gottman
Nicomachean Ethics
Models by Manson seems to be popular on reddit
So Good They Can't Ignore You by Newport, as well
I'm currently reading Triumphs of Experience by Vaillant and find it insightful.
Buy this... Now... Internalize it.
"Do the Work" by Steven Pressfield
"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1936891379/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_3cxTzbSBHTXN5"
Alternatively, you could buy his original, "The War of Art" that Do the Work is based on. Set up daily practices and stick to them, consistency beats everything. It's about what you actually do, daily. Buy the book, it'll change your life.
Hang in there. You've acknowledged the problem, the first step is done. Now keep on going.
If you're up for it and need some motivation, read Do the Work. It's just 70 pages, highly motivational and gets you in the right mood to get going. The author tries to break through the fear and resistance all of us experience when trying to do work by personifying it, which worked quite well for me.
Good luck!
You got lots of good advice on the thread. I just want to reinforce that at almost 28, you are so young and you have your whole life ahead of you. Anything can happen. But you need to start the change. If you keep doing the same things over and over, you can pretty much expect the same to keep happening. So YOU need to get this process started. You have nothing to lose, girl! You are an intelligent, healthy woman, you are competent, you've got a stable job, you write well... You can be whomever you want to be.
The thing is, right now, you are lacking motivation. You have no challenge going on. So I think it's time for you to stop holding yourself back. Go for it. Write a kick-ass resume and start applying for a job at a company you like. A good book with ideas for job hunting is Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters. I gifted this to a friend a couple years ago, and it was very good for her. For negotiating skills, getting a raise or a new position, and actually to get people to love you everywhere you go, read How to Win Friends and Influence People.
You really shouldn't compare yourself to others. We never know how people really are... That happy marriage, maybe it's not so happy. That fancy lifestyle, maybe powered by credit card debts... We just never know. So don't waste your time and energy (those are limited resources) on other people. Focus on how you can improve YOUR life. How you can be happy by being you and doing you. Think of your time and your energy as a currency. It's to be spent in the only person that deserves it -- you.
If you don't like the gym, don't go to the gym. Life goes by so fast, don't waste your "currency" on something you don't love. Ditch the damn gym. What about running, hiking, kayaking, yoga, tai chi chuan, dog walking, belly dance, ballet, climbing, skateboarding?! Surely you can find something that you love, that makes you happy AND that makes you healthy and strong! You might even meet people and make new friends who share those interests with you. The same applies for hobbies. If you haven't found a passion, try to discover it! You can take guitar lessons, try painting or drawing, cooking... keep trying. Keep learning more about yourself. Surround yourself with things you love, people you love, sports you love. Give yourself, your body, your mind, the love you deserve. Buy some essential oils, give yourself a nice foot massage. Be proactive when it comes to this. It is your life. Your happiness is your responsibility!
Lastly, I'd like to recommend a book I am reading now. It is changing my life. It's called The Artist's Way. When the author wrote it, she was focusing on writers and artists. But the truth is, this book is for everybody. It's a "course" in 12 weeks and it involves two main things: writing 3 pages of stream of consciousness daily, and going on a weekly date with yourself. Every week you deal with a different aspect of your life - or rather, a different block in your life. Little by little you work on removing the blocks, very gently. Your work on your self-esteem, your courage, your creativity... To me it feels like therapy. It's life saving.
Just remember, it's never too late. :)
The Gifts of Imperfection helped me to get honest about how I feel instead of pretending my emotions don't exist.
And Switch on Your Brain taught me how manage my emotions by managing my thoughts. I didn't even realize how negative and berating my self-talk was until I read that book.
It doesn't need to be super brightly colored. But white text on a black background just isn't enough.
Example 1.
Example 2.
Example 3.
None of those are super brightly colored. But they're eye-catching.
Try some kind of system for building outlines. Here is one, and really the article details the whole thing. His book on Amazon is just an expaned treatmetn including a worked example. And ther are others like Take of Your Pants.
Hello.
I have been drawing since I was little kid.
If I had to start now I'd use this book.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0007116454
Learn art basics first. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is very short and very helpful. I suggest starting with that.
>I often read that practice is the key to good drawing.
It's the only way. Learn and apply. Keep reiterating that cycle.
I think the standard reply to this is:
Some kind of structured practice and this book: Drawing on the right side of the brain.
I have this book and whilst I haven't been adhering to it strictly in any way, it has definitely improved my ability to draw. The examples provided of progress by her students is quite encouraging, too.
I recently read This and it helped me with drawing perspective immensely.
But straining your brain can be good!
I'd suggest reading http://www.amazon.com/Free-Culture-Nature-Future-Creativity/dp/0143034650.
I recommend Lawrence Lessig's book "Free Culture" for information on the crazy copyright situation in the US today. It was very enlightening for me. Spoiler alert: Big Media doesn't actually care about content creators. Gasp!
May I suggest The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Sir Ken Robinson.
The title may make it sound like a self help book, but it's not. Robinson posits some theories and ideas about what it means to be passionate, and the rest of the book are stories from creative people (Paul McCartney, Paulo Coelho) about what they do to stay passionate about their lives/work.
If you want a taste of Robinson before committing to a book, you can watch his TED talk about how schools are killing creativity.
Yes, it was to provide special needs kids with the education they needed. The creator of the SAT later renounced eugenics and the test itself, but assholes like Termen needed to apply it to the top end so he could keep getting research funding.
I learned about this stuff from Sir Ken Robinson's amazing book on the failed, modern educational system, "The Element."
I think special education for the numinous qualities of the gifted is certainly needed, but much harder to define. The space to let autodidacts teach themselves is probably the best thing schools could do for them.
Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration is probably the best work I've came across on the subject.
The Element - Ken Robinson This book might help.
Good luck!
Two book recommendations!
the artists way
And
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
It is a great question, and something almost everyone struggles with. I'd suggest working on creativity as a skill, separate from your job, and it let organically work its way back into the office.
There is has been a ton written in the last decade about how the creativity that almost every child has is drained out. It may be the way our education works, our society, or just a byproduct of being an adult and becoming aware of right and wrong, possible and impossible, true and false. There are tons of approaches to tapping back into that childlike sense of creativity and wonder, some more psychological, some more spiritual. I'd just look and see what suits you. But look at stuff like:
https://zenhabits.net/how-to-be-childlike/
https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/
https://www.amazon.com/Out-Box-Ideas-Thinking-Creatively/dp/1844834115
https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252/
It is possible to do alone. I've been to (court mandated) AA and NA and I simply cannot stand it. One sob story or wild tale of drunken adventure after another, the same stories week after week...everyone with tears in their eyes, a good 40% of people in there saying they are sober when the reality is that they have just switched up to something else (weed or pills generally). All the God and Jesus bullshit. I hate everything about it, even the camaraderie/people pretending to care about you
I wanted to become sober and I have. books like these X † X help me put things into perspective and realize that there is much more that I want to do in life than get home and get wasted and then feel shitty the entire next day.
I was a monster...I'd do any drug under the sun, I'd drink a fifth of vodka every night and I was able to stop with my own willpower eventually
1.) Something that is grey: Sculpy! From my cosplay wishlist! :D
2.) Something reminiscent of rain: This hair accessory from my Silly Fun list! I don't know if they're meant to, but the blue bits remind me of raindrops. <3
3.) Something food related that is unusual: Food picks from my Silly Fun list! Maybe not super unusual in Japan, but here in America I doubt you'd see them often.
4.) Something on your list that is for someone other than yourself: This book off my Books wishlist of course! It's for my husband, who's a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls games. I like them, too, but I doubt I'd ever read this.
5.) A book I should read: The Invisible Gorilla, again, off my Books list. I read almost a third of this book while hidden in a book store one day. It's an absolutely fascinating study (or rather, collection of studies) about how much trust we place in our own faulty intuitions.
6.) An item that is less than a dollar, including shipping... that is not jewelry, nail polish, and or hair related: Barely, but this nautical star decal! Unfortunately, it's not on any of my lists.
7.) Something related to cats: Another from my Books wishlist! I'm pretty sure I already know my cat wants to kill me, but this book looks funny anyway.
8.) Something that is not useful, but so beautiful you must have it: Stationary, from my Silly Fun list. I have no one to write to, but I have an obsession with pretty stationary and cards and things. I'm usually too afraid to write on it, even, because nothing ever seems worthy of the pretty paper...
9.) A movie everyone should watch at least once in their life: From my Movies/TV list: Braveheart! Because FREEEDOOOOOOM!!!!!
10.) Something that would be useful when the zombies attack. Explain: Survival knife from my Adventure wishlist! Secluded, unpopulated areas are best for hiding from zombies, and this thing even comes with a firestarter! HOW CAN YOU SAY NO?
11.) Something that would have a profound impact on your life and help you to achieve your current goals: This book which is, strangely, on my Semi-Practical list. I'm a Math/Physics major, but I haven't been in school in quite a while. I'm about to go back very soon, and I'm a little petrified of failing out.
12.) One of those pesky Add-On items: Red Heart yarn from my Crochet wishlist!
13.) The most expensive thing on your list. Your dream item: The PS4 from my Video Games list. I'm an avid gamer. Video games are how I relax. It's one of the few things that, no matter how crappy my day was, always manages to raise my spirits and help me forget about it all.
14.) Something bigger than a bread box: Apparently bread boxes are way bigger than I thought, so I'll go with this desk off my Semi-Practical wishlist. Surely that's big enough! XD
15.) Something smaller than a golf ball: Turtle earrings off my Silly Fun list! THEY'RE SO CUTE!
16.) Something that smells wonderful: Teavana's Blueberry Bliss tea off my Silly Fun list (yet again). If you've never been in a Teavana store, go this second and just...inhale. <3
17.) A (SFW) toy: Frog mitt from my Practical list. I'm fairly certain this isn't supposed to be a toy, but I get the feeling I'm going to spend more time using it as a puppet than as an oven mitt.
18.) Something that would be helpful for going back to school: This backpack from my Semi-Practical list! I want it so badly!! IT'S STUDIO GHIBLI HOW AWESOME IS THAT?
19.) Something related to your current obsession, whatever that may be: 12 Hole Ocarina from my Ocarina wishlist. It's so beautiful and it comes with a Lord of the Rings songbook and I just LOVE IT SO MUCH.
20.) Something that is just so amazing and awe-inspiring that I simply must see it. Explain why it is so grand: Shark sleeping bag from my Silly Fun wishlist! You need me to explain it's awesome?? REALLY? IT'S A SHARK SLEEPING BAG. It looks like the shark is eating you!! Plus it's called the "Chumbuddy" and that just makes me laugh way harder than it should.
Fear cuts deeper than swords!
This Book Will Change Your Life
Oder generischer:
Luck is opportunity meeting a prepared mind
Auch ganz gute Lektüre zu dem Thema:
Ooh, I know this! So, first read everyone else's responses. They're probably smarter than I. I was in your shoes about 10 years ago. I was working for a small film company and taking on any job that had any element of copywriting in it. (If I got my boss coffee, I'd write a story about it and send to all my friends.) Then, I got a call from a CD I'd met at a party that I have an interview "later this week." I called all my advertising friends. This is a compilation of the advice that I think helped me land the job:
Ogilvy on Advertising
It's not how good you are...
Selling the invisible
Keep in mind, I focused on the creative side bc the agency I worked for put ZERO value on research. They (wrongly) thought it was a waste of money, and I wasn't going to convince them otherwise. They also didn't care much for conversions. They simply wanted clever writing. Your situation may be different. Research first, and focus on the important bits. Good luck, and feel free to PM me if you want to discuss.
As for your lowball salary, everything is negotiable. Be honest. Tell them you realize they're taking a risk by interviewing fresh talent, and you'd like to revisit it after 6 months or so.
It's Not How Good You Are It's How Good You Want To Be
It's Not How Good You Are It's How Good You Want To Be. Which ad school are you at?
The Idea Writers - Tons of Case Studies, but they're all told excellently.
It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be - Inspiration not to settl and to do great work.
Baked In - A lot like an updated Purple Cow. All about integrating product, management, and marketing.
Blink or Tipping Point - About the little things that cause shifts in culture to happen.
Also, some Seth Godin action never hurts. Definitely recommend his blog.
If you want more "How to make ads" type stuff there are more down that path, too. Just let me know.
It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be
by Paul Arden, an ad guru. Tiny and awesome for creative professionals and anyone managing certain types of client relationships.
http://amzn.com/0714843377
Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!)
For me, it's meditative. I don't play in tournaments much or really compete. I prefer to play alone and compete against my own scores. Throw, walk, pick up, throw, walk, pick up etc. It clears my head and sometimes I'll be three or four holes in and remember that I haven't been thinking except for in the moment in full immersion. There's a book by Stephen Nachmanovich called "Free Play" that really describes the commitment of mind and body that happens when you become fully integrated and immersed in an activity. Of course, there is tons of creativity in disc golf as well, which stimulates that side of the brain as well. Again, it's walking throwing meditation for me.
Also, I love being in the woods and challenging myself continually.
I love that it's free to play most of the time.
Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch
I think this one can be very therapeutic!
You don't have to worry if you are coloring things as they are in nature, and you can spend ages in one page just coloring, lookss very calming to me!
I love my inner child!!
Either:
Coloring for Grown-Ups: The Adult Activity Book
Or
Unicorns Are Jerks: a coloring book exposing the cold, hard, sparkly truth
Thanks for the contest!! It reminded me how much I LOVE to color! It's therapeutic for me.
Edit: I also have Between the Lines: An Expert Level Coloring Book == and == Outside the Lines: An Artists' Coloring Book for Giant Imaginations (totally stole that one from /u/chickenfriedsoup so if you pick this particular book, give it to them)
ThinkerToys - http://www.amazon.com/Thinkertoys-Handbook-Creative-Thinking-Techniques-Edition/dp/1580087736
A few more practical techniques (not mine):
Forced association. Attempt to blend the two into something worthwhile. A bad example - lamp and speaker. How about a speaker that looks like a lamp and can be moved around like a flexible lamp arm? This forces the mind to make connections between things that otherwise seem unrelated.
The +-x technique. What can I add/subtract/modify to the design that would make it more creative. Turn it upside down. Completely change the shape. Add something.
I'm explaining this really poorly. Thinker Toys is a fantastic book that gives you practical exercises to help boost creativity and encourage out of the box thinking. I've read a tonne of guides and this one is by far the best.
Ok, let's take an actual look at this and not at your professor's discredited ideology.
First of all, Federal Income Taxes are only part of the total tax burden. Anyone who isn't also looking at Sales Tax, Payroll Tax, Excise Tax, and Property Taxes is trying to sell you a bridge.
Payroll taxes are regressive due to cap on earning: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/the-regressive-tax-that-does-the-work/ "As a result, people earning over $106,800 pay a lesser percentage of their earnings in payroll taxes than do people earning less than $106,800."
Income taxes themselves are regressive: http://www.middleclassimpact.com/our-regressive-income-tax/
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax): According to Congressional Budget Office estimates,[13] the federal tax system is a progressive tax system for earners all but the richest 1% of Americans. According to the study, the lowest earning 20% of Americans (24.1 million households earning an average of $15,900 in 2005) paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.9%, when taking into account income tax, social insurance tax, and excise tax. The highest earning 5% (5.8 million households earning an average of $520,200 in 2005) paid an effective federal tax rate of 21.5%. However, the highest earning 1% of Americans (1.1 million households earning an average of $1,558,500 in 2005) paid an "effective" federal tax rate of 21.3%.
note that the system breaks down once you hit the 1% mark
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/04/18/the-rise-of-the-hints-high-income-no-taxes/
"According to an article by Tom Herman in The Fiscal Times, more than 10,000 Americans who earned more than $200,000 in 2007 paid no income taxes to the U.S. government."
What this means is that yes, a lot of people don't pay federal income taxes, but some of them are ultra-rich! THEY ARE NOT SUPPORTING THE REST OF US. THIS IS SIMPLY PROPAGANDA.
> People that hate the rich are simply jealous.
The real truth is that people, like your professor, hate the poor. And if you're poor, you hate yourself. That's how you can have shit like http://the53.tumblr.com/ where people wear their dedication to being a sacred, job creating rich person while they mire in inescapable poverty like a badge of honor.
Bonus round: If you want to read a good book about the ways in which the wealthy in this country actually receive the most amount of government money, I highly recommend Free Lunch:How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You with the Bill
If you are looking for more reading on this subject I highly recommend the book free lunch by David Cay Johnston
I picked up Ignore Everyone: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity on Audible, pretty good so far.
Here it is on Amazon.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
You probably will have to work twice as hard as everyone else if you want your dream
jobcareer.Get a job in order to finance your dream career; have your overhead as low as possible (cheap rent, no debt etc...) and then all your free time and money go toward creating for the sake of creating. Find your medium of choice, or - better - mediums and intersection of mediums, and then your voice.
Keep on creating, hang out with other creative people for cross pollination, stay away from too competitive creative people and keep on going. Don't stop.
This is a good book: https://www.amazon.com/Ignore-Everybody-Other-Keys-Creativity/dp/159184259X
A few pointers:
Answer: this is a good book
Let me try to get you started
First off, let's start with some Seth Godin, dude's got some stuff figured out subscribe to his blog, but for right now pick up a copy of The Dip, or better yet read this summary or better yet read the whole thing.
That book is about finding something that you can be best in the world in, so do just that. The world needs you to do something, to be a part of something, that is better than everything else. There is too much mediocrity, too much good enough, you need to shoot for great. So yeah, start today.
When you have decided what you are going to be the best in the world at, get a copy of Do The Work. This book will basically walk you through your whatever it is (novel, event, business plan, etc.). The big thought here is that once you start you're going to hit a thing called resistance. Resistance is what is going to pull you back down to normalcy whenever you try to do something great. Expect it, respect it, but don't let it stop you.
If you want more stuff to read check out the Art of Non-Conformity and the Guide to World Domination. Outliers is good for understanding how much failure accompanies success.
This link and book can be resourceful for you:
https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/1mwb06/rutbusting_or_how_to_get_out_of_your_head_become/
http://www.amazon.com/Do-Work-Steven-Pressfield/dp/1936719010/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Basically stop thinking and make whatever you want, even if its trash. The reason you used to be able to make different stuff and cant now is that youve gotten better and thus more cerebral, youve gotten so good at making trap that any attempt to make anything else doesn't last because it sucks in comparison, stop comparing and make whatever you want.
May I suggest a great book on this topic? [Do the Work by Steven Pressfield] (https://www.amazon.com/Do-Work-Overcome-Resistance-Your/dp/1936891379)
Do you follow any particular outlining format? Is there a science to how you plot your character arcs? In the past couple of years, I've been experimenting with the methods in Take Off Your Pants! by Libbie Hawker, and my outlines have definitely improved to a great extent. But I still don't feel I'm at the point yet where they are complete enough to avoid having to do a major plot-level revision.
No problem. I build my outlines very closely to Libbie Hawker's. PM me if you'd like my custom full outline layout based on her book. I have it in a google doc.
And I am. I work 60+ hours a week on top of writing and doing other things. It just takes a lot of hard work and dedication. Go read Chris Fox's 5000 Words Per Hour. It doesn't take that long and it just requires knowing what you want to write.
https://www.amazon.com/000-Words-Hour-Faster-Smarter-ebook/dp/B00XIQKBT8
Keep going, you can get there! Just do a few sprints every day. Before you know it, you'll be blasting out words left and right.
I did 3-6 sprints 6-7 days a week for about 3 weeks before it got easier. YMMV however.
The most important thing is to just do it every day, especially on the days you don't want to (those are the days you level up) and don't worry about creating top quality stuff. Just focus on getting the rhythm/habit down of never missing a day.
Edit: this book may help: https://www.amazon.com/000-Words-Hour-Faster-Smarter-ebook/dp/B00XIQKBT8
Pro tip, get it for free when you sign up for his newsletter: http://www.chrisfoxwrites.com/ . You can always unsubscribe after, but he does put out some good stuff.
In addition to Chris Fox's videos, also check out his book, 5000 Words Per Hour.
I write 2000 words a day and I do it in an hour. Here's how that works:
The first thing I do when I wake up is I shower, make some coffee, and then sit at my computer to start writing. My daily goal is 2000 words a day.
I use Chris' 5000 Words Per Hour iOS app. I set the timer for 20 minutes and also set a 20-minute timer on the the Freedom app on my computer. Freedom disables email and chat and I also set it to block Facebook and Twitter. This is so I don't have any distractions while I'm writing, but I can still use the Internet for reference purposes, like looking up a street or city on Google Maps.
I also use a site called Brain FM. This is a great site that plays music that helps you focus. I plug in my headphones, start my timers, and start writing. And I don't stop until that timer goes off.
Once the timer goes off, I record how many words I wrote and then take a 5-minute break—go to the bathroom, get a refill on my coffee, check email/social media really quickly, etc. After the break's done, I begin another 20-minute session.
By the time I've finished, I've gotten anywhere from 2000-2400 words down.
So that's the basic process. Some other tricks I've learned in order to make the most of each sprint:
-Outline: When I have an outline, even if it's just a few sentences per chapter/scene, that makes the writing go a lot faster. I've got a basic roadmap and that keeps my mind focused. If I make changes to the outline or if I add in something extra, that's fine. But I already have a basic guide for what to write and that means I don't have to waste any time thinking of what to write.
-Learn To Type: This really can't be understated. If you type by hunting and pecking on the keyboard with two fingers, even if you can do it faster than anyone else, you're still not going to be as fast as someone who never has to look at the keyboard and can type with all ten fingers. There are lots of free resources out there for learning how to type. It's nothing more than drilling. I can type about 100 words per minute going at a straight clip, so you'd better believe that when I'm in that flow zone when the words just pour out of me, my fingers are dancing across that keyboard and I'm getting a ton of words written in a short amount of time.
-Minimize Distractions: Not only distractions from the web, but other distractions as well. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb mode. Make sure your family understands this is your writing time and you shouldn't be disturbed. If there's a room in your place where you can be alone for your writing time, do your writing there. Put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door if you need to. Or if you have to write at say the kitchen table, make a little standee or nameplate you can put in front of you with DO NOT DISTURB written on it. I always set up my office with my desk facing the wall and not the window so nothing outside can distract me.
-Make It Routine: Can you write at the same time and in the same place every single day? If so, do it. If you have the ability to set up a home office, then absolutely do that. Try not to use that location for anything other than writing if you can help it. After some time, your brain will start to associate being in that place at that time with writing.
Now obviously, not all this will be possible for everyone. But it's what works for me. Figure out what works for you.
Read the whole series. Do the exercises.
Also check out his YouTube channel.
Gonna assume it's this one? The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007116454/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_gDpEzb0RMWCFA
I'm the lazy kind too. Drawing isn't very strenuous, and you can sit and draw your own foot for your drawing of the day, if you want. :)
I actually bought two books--the one I mentioned (http://www.amazon.com/The-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0007116454), and Keys to Drawing, by Burt Dodson http://www.amazon.com/Keys-Drawing-Bert-Dodson/dp/0891343377/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413937201&sr=1-1&keywords=keys+to+drawing+by+bert+dodson. They are fab books that made me understand that anyone can draw. Some days I got inspiration from the books and did exercises, and other days I'd pick something from around the house or out of a book or even froze the tv and drew people I saw there. No rules except to draw what I saw or imagined once a day, and to finish what I started. For me, finishing was the most important thing, because I get frustrated and want to quit.
Would love to share! That means I'll have to learn how to upload here ...
If you do choose drawing, I'd love to see how it goes!
For those interested, Lawrence Lessig wrote a fabulous book on this topic.
Well, the whole merits of IP and how we treat IP today is a slightly different conversation.
The real conversation in regards to the original topic is the fact that the way we regard IP is very different than how we did, 50-100 years ago. Let alone the way it was handled by enlightenment thinkers and the creators of the world's first democracies and republics.
Quite frankly, the incentive that would have been in their minds (and people like Smith), would have been that people would be able to extract a certain amount of money out of their creations (purely by being the first people to do it) and that eventually the knowledge would be released in some way to an intellectual "commons".
The history of these ideas and how they've changed is really interesting, but maybe a bit much to relay here. Some really good books on the subject:
The Anarchist in the Library
Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
Essentially, for most of society there has been a concept of "the commons". Public spaces that everyone was entitled to use. The (earliest? not sure) most popular manifestation of this was common ground for grazing livestock. It was public land that anyone could bring their animals to, and was regarded as a public service that was in the best interest of the society. It eased pressure on land disputes, let poorer farmers stay above water, etc. Simply, just a good thing for everyone involved. Of course, since it was essentially free animal food, there were instances where the commons were worn down and rendered useless. This is where the phrase "tragedy of the commons" comes from. Regulations were put in place to make the commons effective for the common good, but also sustainable.
These types of initiatives/societal mechanisms were thought by enlightenment thinkers as necessary for our advancement. And those types of things were included in the way they thought about IP, as well. Simply put, it looks much different now than it did then. Things like "The Mickey Mouse Preservation act", for better or worse, made those changes.
So, what someone like Smith would say, is that there is "common good" that comes from free IP. The idea that no one has the patent on the concept of a car is a good thing because it frees up capital for different car companies to compete and make the best car. The individual loss of intellectual "ownership", and whatever that might mean on a broader societal scale, is outweighed by the benefits of "the commons".
But Smith had no concept of "ripping a movie". None of these enlightenment thinkers had any idea of what technology would become, and how that would fundamentally alter the way their theories actually played out in the real world. And since they didn't "cover that", we are left to be the philosophers and thinkers of our time instead of relying on the big ideas of the 1700s. In light of digital technology, the capability to replicate things, the transmit them almost instantaneously all over the world, putting the means of media production into the hands of every man woman and child in an effectively affordable manner... how do we need to build our society? How can we maintain incentive? What is the role of the commons? What are the real ramifications of our decisions? What do we want to achieve, and why?
It's all very interesting to me.
Free Culture On Amazon
Free Culture Official Page
The Future of Ideas on Amazon
The Future of Ideas Official Page
Code on Amazon
Code Official Page
Standard... publisher... copyright pages? Written permission... given in the book... AND on the official websites? No, surely these things cannot be so!
-faps-
Correspondence courses in something that interests you? What do you enjoy? Get an entry level job at some big company and find someone to help you to develop your skills in whatever you want to do?
oh and read this
There's a great book called "The Element" by Ken Robinson that is all about that.
He also has a TED talk
Lastly and perhaps MOST relevant is his new book called "Finding your element". In the first book I recommended he mostly uses examples of people's life from all areas that show how they became to love what they do, organizations that help along the way and the ones that are going the wrong way.
It really helped ME
good luck
The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Sir Ken Robinson. He also did a very popular TED talk a big ago on how schools kill creativity. I find that reading stories of people finding success with their own skills is very inspiring and it makes you look at people in a brighter light. Robinson's book had some great stories in it. That and he's a great speaker. I'd recommend both the talk and the book.
Get the book The Artist's Way and do that whole program. It's life changing.
https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252
I just started doing The Artist's Way program. https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536667414&sr=8-1&keywords=the+artists%27+way
It's for blocked writers, to get past your inner critic. It's a 12 week program, with assignments each week. And the author is in long term recovery, so a lot of the language is similar to recovery (and she talks about "recovering" your creativity.)
I'm enjoying it, and It has helped me figure out a bunch of stuff I had been stuck on with my own writing.
The exhaustion and drainage you feel is the proof - the receipt, as it were - of the strength you have at your command.
If you need to do anything, you need to find a means of recharging that strength without having to worry about the ugliness submerging you while you rest & recuperate. At the risk of sounding trite, Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way has a laundry-list of methods of recharging one's creative batteries, most if not all of which are transferrable skills when it comes to recharging one's mental health. Found this of interest too.
Fingers crossed in your favour...
Happy birthday!!! The Artist’s Way makes me happiest because it reminds me that as long as I’m trying to become an artist, I will be one. It also reminds me that there are others who face the same blocks I do. :)
​
Mitch Hedberg once said:
​
“I saw a wino eating grapes.
I told him he had to wait.”
I suggest you work your way through this book, completing all the exercises one or two a day: The Artist’s Way. Take her advice and free-write every morning or at some convenient time when you don’t have to think about your structured work or studies. It’s very freeing (I am not generally a person who requires a guide but this one is seriously helpful):
https://www.amazon.ca/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252
The other books that really got me standing up straight are Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Stephen King’s On Writing.
The absolute best and most inspiring book on writing I’ve ever read - and one that always kick starts me when I feel my writing is ‘wooden’ - is Brenda Euland’s If You Want To Write. Hands down, it’s the best book.
We all need a little inspiration from time to time to drag us from the doldrums.
Man here. A while back I was following this book with the ex: http://www.amazon.com/This-Book-Will-Change-Your/dp/0452284899
One of the tasks is to post a an honest personal ad on Craigslist, but for the opposite sexual orientation. We each posted a long, detailed ad about our hobbies and interests. She got a bunch of really polite women asking for a date at a local coffee shop.
I got pictures of penises. Lots of them. What is going on at the MfM?
edit: grammar.
simple amazon search :D
may i recommend the book, "this book will change your life" very similar to this concept.
http://www.amazon.com/This-Book-Will-Change-Your/dp/0452284899
Your posts are what made me subscribe to this sub. I think it would be a great idea to create a challenge book. If you haven't seen ["This Book Will Change Your Life"] (http://www.amazon.com/This-Book-Will-Change-Your/dp/0452284899) it may help draw some inspiration. Congrats on completing your challenge.
'this book will change your life' .. fun book.
US Link for those interested.
It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden
It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be: The world's best selling book
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0714843377/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_B0HPub1C0R97Z
Damn Good Advice
I feel that a lot of people will have mixed feelings about it, but George Lois is an advertising legend and his book is full of tons of to the point, no nonsense advice.
Paul Arden, also, was one of the loveliest, nicest creative directors I ever had the pleasure to meet. He was so nice :)
Oh, if you want a slightly longer book in the same vein
http://www.amazon.com/Damn-Good-Advice-People-Talent/dp/0714863483
George Lois. Genius!
I'm trying to think of a book that really stands out on overall marketing and nothing is coming to mind at the moment, but of the textbooks I used in my marketing program one of the easiest to read and most helpful was "The Public Relations Writer's Handbook": https://www.amazon.com/Public-Relations-Writers-Handbook-Digital/dp/0787986313/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486581186&sr=8-1&keywords=public+relations+handbook
An interesting fun one that's a quick read is "Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!)" by George Lois: https://www.amazon.com/Damn-Good-Advice-People-Talent/dp/0714863483/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486581296&sr=1-1&keywords=damn+good+advice
I'll add more if I think of anything.
If you really want to work with your hands and have more of a physical connection with your work, have you ever thought about screen printing? There's both a digital and a physical stage to this process, and the end result of what you produce is both a visual and tactile experience. Some kids I went to college with screen printed a lot of band posters for local artists and started a business from the ground up. They're now a pretty big deal and have a national audience: http://aestheticapparatus.com/
Getting there however isn't done easily or cheaply, and there isn't a guaranteed formula that will assure your success. That's part of the risk you take in starting your own business but in it you get to be the boss and decide what kind of work you want to do.
Don't worry so much about feeling like a laborer right now - your college experience gives you valuable skills that translate well to the field - what needs to be trained afterwards is the knowledge of how to think about a design problem and how to communicate an effective strategy to your client, and then get them to buy it.
There's a good read out there for you - it's called Damn Good Advice for People With Talent. It's written by George Lois. Name ring a bell? No? Ever heard of Don Draper? George Lois is the guy they modeled the character after (but of course decided to cut out all the unappealing bits, like hard work).
Design is 5% ability, 5% creativity, and 90% knowledge and salesmanship.
Sure! It used to be available for prime, but isn’t at the moment
Mom's One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/0811874907/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_hzJ4AbTPW4F3V
My husband bought me a journal on Amazon where every day you write a small message about your life as a mom. It’s good for 5 years and I love it so far.
https://www.amazon.com/Moms-One-Line-Day-Five-Year/dp/0811874907/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=mom+s+one+line+a+day+a+five-year+memory+book&qid=1566737898&s=gateway&sprefix=mom’s+o&sr=8-1
I'm not the type to follow through with a journal, but I did once have a line-a-day journal that I kept up for awhile (like not even a whole year haha) and I see they have a mom version - so I might spring for one of those.
Mom's One Line a Day
We registered for this one: https://www.amazon.com/Petit-Baby-Book-Claire-Laude/dp/1452152004
I've also seen the moms one line a day book for random notes/milestones. https://www.amazon.com/Moms-One-Line-Day-Five-Year/dp/0811874907
By the way, I don't know if it would help you, but to help myself, I bought this:
http://www.amazon.com/Moms-One-Line-Day-Five-Year/dp/0811874907
It's a five year journal with enough space for about a line or two every day. I don't have time to keep a real journal and I forget to dig out the baby book for each "first" but I figure anyone has time for one line a day... just one memory each day so that I have a small chronicle of the years changing, slowly but surely.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0811874907/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1496105154&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=one+line+a+day+a+five+year+memory+book&dpPl=1&dpID=31sLg76DE3L&ref=plSrch
This is nice because the small spaces for entries keep it from being burdensome, and make you really focus on the important parts of the day. There's a similar one that asks a question every day, that's also a five year journal.
For a new mother (like my wife) I got this Little 5 year one liner Diary. It'll be great for her to look back at the good moments of the days.
For composing, it's usually easiest to start with an ostinato, or repeating 1-4 measure phrase, in your LH. Then, try to come up with a melody in your RH to fit over that LH figure. You can try setting the words of a poem to music over that ostinato figure.
Remember, composing is a skill, so the more you do it, the better you get. Don't worry about whether it's good or not, don't try to compose a certain "style" or emotion. Simply allow what wants to come out to emerge. The book [Free Play] (http://www.amazon.com/Free-Play-Improvisation-Life-Art/dp/0874776317) has lots of great ideas in these areas.
I didn't start composing until I was in college, but I had started improvising before then, usually with jazz chords I was learning from my saxophone lessons, but not always. My biggest recommendation is to keep studying what greats have done before you and to always have some sort of voice recorder around (my phone does this). I've been in airports and driving in cars when great musical ideas struck. RECORD THOSE IDEAS!! You almost certainly will forget them otherwise, so it's good to have a repository of ideas to draw from later.
I personally have only ever composed in the jazz idiom, which I like because you only have to compose 30-60 bars or so and not everything has to be 100% nailed down, which leaves room for editing and takes some of the perfectionist pressure off. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Carpe Diem !
Hmmm. Something you can do instead of being bored.
Perhaps getting one of those adult coloring books, like this? That and a pack of markers would keep me busy (and entertained!) for hours!
this coloring book would make me feel better about wasting my time!
Life is about using the whole box of crayons <3
Some neat ideas for artsy people are a Buddha board and an expert coloring book.
This has a very similar style. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1495337111/ref=cm_sw_su_dp
His youtube channel is pretty good too: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGtGTAa-xarr2HrEKRgRUHQ
In terms of your question in general (i.e. generating useful ideas in general), it's really just a matter of creating a large amount of ideas every day. For me, I have a list of 17 different topics that I generate ideas for (which I pick randomly each day) and then I generate 10 ideas for the random topic that day.
Ignore whether your ideas are "good" or "bad" and just generate them. Oftentimes the best ideas can seem counter-intuitive, unusual, or "bad" at first.
It's also a matter of having the proper mindset as well. For that, I'd recommend listening to "the MFCEO" podcast. Also, reading books related to creativity could also be useful for you. Here's one that helped me a lot:
https://www.amazon.com/Thinkertoys-Handbook-Creative-Thinking-Techniques-2nd/dp/1580087736
Also, don't get stuck waiting for the "perfect" idea, because it's never going to happen and you're going to get stuck overanalyzing things. Just make things and work your ass off.
PM me if you have any more questions! Good luck
Thinkertoys is a great book on creative thinking.
http://www.amazon.com/Thinkertoys-Handbook-Creative-Thinking-Techniques-Edition/dp/1580087736
I took some entrepreneurship courses in college and read "Cracking Creativity" "Your Brain At Work" and "Thinkertoys" as part of the curriculum. I thought all of them were excellent and cracking creativity is especially good for creative thinking
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&amp;field-keywords=cracking+creativity&amp;rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Acracking+creativity
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Work-Strategies-Distraction/dp/0061771295/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1449172741&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=your+brain+at+work
http://www.amazon.com/Thinkertoys-Handbook-Creative-Thinking-Techniques-2nd/dp/1580087736/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1449172562&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=thinkertoys
The video shows the increase in the cost of healthcare and she describes (as I recall) the change in healthcare since that time. If you're interested in more about how healthcare has been corrupted by the government, I recommend the book Free Lunch. It describes the pattern of change in health after the HMO act was brought into effect in the 1970s.
Many get a Free Lunch.
No worries, glad to help and thanks for the kind words. I totally accept your apology, though I have no recollection of how it went down ;) But yeah, there are a LOT of internet tough guys out there. It is pretty discouraging. Art is hard, criticism is easy. Too easy, perhaps, and too pleasurable as well. I fall into the trap from time to time, but really try to avoid critiquing without seeing the scene in front of me.
I have gotten attacked (and still do) from time to time. No reason to get angry really, hell, I will happily meet anyone for lunch who wants to sit down and have a civil debate about art/photography/my work/whatever. It is a lot harder to be an internet tough guy in person.
I remember when WT went viral. I was called a "terrible photoshopper," a "terrorist", a "rip-off artist" and so many more awful things.
Now, on to your questions, I am notoriously verbose...
I've never done any real social media'ing outside of facebook, which is mostly useful for keeping in touch with photographers. People claim that they get work through FB, instagram, twitter, whatever, but for ARCHITECTURAL photography I think it's nearly useless. For weddings, senior portraits, etc, different story entirely. Just depends what you want to shoot.
Best marketing is referrals, facetime, great website, I make no bones about it. All in my experience of course.
Like you said, can be very helpful and hurtful, especially when you post a project that you put blood, sweat, and tears into and people come out of the woodwork with unsolicited critique. But it doesn't really affect me at this point, I've just gotten so used to it and Wake Turbulence really taught me that the majority of people commenting are completely out of touch with reality, so I take everything with a grain of salt now. It's kinda funny, I want to put together a compilation of all the ridiculous comments. People actually wasted time writing articles about how I was a threat to national security.
I never really worried about comparing myself to other photographers because I'm not trying to BE other photographers. I do have my favorites, but I'm very careful of who I pick out. Like I've mentioned, I love Erik Almas' work, Scott Frances, Gregory Crewdson etc but they're all very different than me and have very different approaches. I find that it's better to compare myself to great classic artists instead of photographers- as it is the painters and sculptors who REALLY know how to work with light, color, form and shape - that informs my work more than anything. If I'm looking for inspiration I take a trip to LACMA or the Getty or something and have a feast for the eyes on some great classic stuff. Just beautiful. I love the soft colors, great textures, lighting, etc, inherent in the paintings from the greats.
And in regards to everything, a great book worth reading is 'Ignore Everybody' by Hugh McLeod. Well worth the $10 and really helped me on my career:
http://www.amazon.com/Ignore-Everybody-Other-Keys-Creativity/dp/159184259X
>Can never remember art ain't a noun, it's a verb
Enjoyed that line.
You might enjoy a book called Ignore Everbody.
It's complicated.
Family and Friends are not literary critics, nor peer reviewers; therefore they are not equipped to give good feedback.
Moreover, Family and Friends often dismiss someone's efforts, especially creative efforts, by highlighting the negatives and dismissing the positive. There are psychological reasons why it is this way, hence my premise: It's complicated.
But wait, there's more!
Why do you care about what your family/friends think of your writing? Well, it's simple: external validation. Why? Again, it's complicated (psychological reason).
So . . . "Am I fucked?" you're thinking.
Worry not, there's a solution: do not seek out external validation, and surely not from friends and family. What you want is good honest feedback from someone who:
I am neither competent nor you can trust me, but I can tell you that: you wrote something? Great! Awesome! You did it! You're the 1 percent (read about the 90-9-1 rule); and no, it's not as good as your next writing, so . . . keep on writing.
NOTE: this is a great read, so is this one.
From his wishlist
Do the work and Ignore Everybody
cracks knuckles
Here's my top /insert quantity here/. I read these all regularly (most once a year, some of the smaller ones, once a quarter), and listen to them during my commute more than is perhaps strictly healthy (might as well make good use of the time.)
That ought to do it. It's really all there. Plus, if you start searching around through that kind of stuff, you'll undoubtedly find more that you're drawn to for one reason or another.
There are a couple well known names that are intentionally absent. Tony Robbins, for one. Tony is keen to blow sunshine up your ass so that you buy his next book, bigger program, seminar, etc. If that's the kind of thing you need, read The Giant Within. I can't stand his stuff. I find it patronizing and egomaniacal.
AMA. I've read hundreds of these things.
Enjoy o/
>the Jewish people is their incredible work ethic
Is this really any different or only highlighted more among Jews for some reason?
I would argue that Judaism has a lot to do with self-discipline and that could play a part but I don't know that it is really any different than any other group.
>Are there particular writings/philosophies you can point me to?
It isn't Jewish but my favorite is "Do The Work" by Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfields Do The Work.
https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/0446691437
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1936891379/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=BCVW7CW9290PCY99W606&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=41atyZ0pgmL
Just get it done, son.
Oh I typed all this for you my dude but these dastardly bullies caused you to delete it.
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Hope it benefits you or another ENTP stoner:
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What caught my eye was the Myers-Briggs test: I also (usually) test ENTP. Just wanted to say I think the Reddit subs seem to do it a serious disservice:
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A) It is a management tool. It is not meant to enable some rando's life as a lovable eccentric. You should be shoring up the weaknesses it shows, not jerking off to how creative you think you are (not that you can stop yourself amirite? Ha!), and
B) It is not a tarot card reading of your soul. I get profiled regularly, by professionals, using whatever method is in vogue at that moment and while I absolutely see the value in the tests, it is limited, it is contextual and it will vary over time.
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It is not so much "revealing" your personality as a prediction of how your behavior will manifest in a given context. MB being particularly general. For example, all my ENTP result tells me is that RIGHT NOW, I likely have too many projects going on and/or am managing my time poorly.
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So based on your results, I would recommend you get out of your comfort zone and focus on active productivity exercises. Far from being something unsuited to you: they are likely just what you need. Anytime I dial this in tight, my life has a night and day improvement.
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7 Habits is the granddaddy of course.
Unchained Man has a great time management system. Actually he refers back to Covey's 7 habits and explains why and how he updated the principle for a digital era. The rest isn't "bad" but its pretty standard 4HWW/TRP/Digital nomad type stuff. You could literally read Chapters 8-11 and get a great deal of benefit.
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4HWW fuck I hate this book. And it's probably dangerous for lazy fucks. But Ferriss has nuggets of good advice on productivity and time management.
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More conceptual reading:
Do the Work;
The War of Art;
The Power of Habit;
Rework;
On Form - some tips, although heavily weighted to glorify salaryman life;
One Minute Manager;
Extreme Ownership has helped a lot of dudes here. Personally I despise wading through the military waffle for two or three pages of content but the message of owning every aspect of your life and not accepting low standards from yourself or others is good (Hint: that means after you quit weed, (after a reasonable interval) you can and should expect your lazy wife to too).
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Corporations have invested a great deal of time and money in training me but honestly most of the valuable things I implement are on that list.
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Atomic Habits is on my current reading list. Check out this post (and comments) with some concepts from it.
I would recommend two books for you to read
https://www.amazon.com/Show-Your-Work-Austin-Kleon/dp/076117897X
https://www.amazon.com/Do-Work-Overcome-Resistance-Your/dp/1936891379/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1GH3K61EWSRLK&keywords=steven+pressfield&qid=1571259852&s=books&sprefix=steven+press%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C262&sr=1-5
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In my experience I would always say to myself what is the worst that can happen? And you know that saying by Reid Hoffman's — “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late.”
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Best of luck to you!
Reminds me of Circa Survive song that says "Always begin, never prepare" which is based on the book Do The Work
https://www.amazon.com/Do-Work-Overcome-Resistance-Your/dp/1936891379
The first book I thought of is The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.
What I do isn't quite like you describe, though it is much like D. above.
I do morning pages, which I was first introduced to in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. The tl;dr? Basically 3 pages of longhand stream of conscious writing on pen and paper. For me, this ends up being about an hour's worth of writing. It's one of the first activities of my morning, usually within an hour of waking, so I'm still "booting up", so to speak.
It's a habit that I've had off and on since I first read Julia Cameron's book probably a dozen years ago. I would correlate the times when I was writing with my most mindful and aware times of my life. I am more in tune with my desires. I get ideas for what I want to do. I may start writing by complaining about how tired I am, move to writing about something I want to do, and then end up writing about some change I need to make. You really do get to the bottom of things. And by doing it every day, you have that daily touchstone of what's going on in your life.
I've just been back in the daily habit for three weeks and it has already made a big difference. I've been able to make some changes in my life that are putting me on a better path.
Tienes que practicar no prestarle atención a esa parte de ti que te dice que no tienes nada interesante que escribir.
Te propongo un ejercicio que leí en un libro. Cada día tienes que rellenar 3 páginas. Solo hay dos reglas:
Escribe lo primero que se te pase por la mente. Da igual si es una tontería o no tiene sentido. Si no sabes qué escribir escribe "no se qué escribir" hasta que rellenes las 3 páginas.
El objetivo no es hacer literatura ni escribir bien, es rellenar papel. La autora del libro dice que es mejor escribir a mano, pero yo creo que es cuestión de gustos.
I recommend The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It doesn't directly address CPTSD, but it does talk a lot about the inner critic (Cameron calls it the censor) and the inner child. There are a lot of exercises that are helpful.
The book that got me started was "Compassion and Self Hate". There might be other books published since then, but for some reason this book really got through to me.
The thing that really, truly cemented this for me was a personal growth course done by Human Awareness Institute. These courses might be too "out there" for many, but oh my did they work well for me. Specifically, Level 2 focuses on self-love.
EDIT -- my wife reminded me about this book too. It is excellent: https://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Imperfection-Think-Supposed-Embrace-ebook/dp/B00BS03LL6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1465698723&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=brene+brown
Any in mind? Read any good ones lately? I'm trying to get back in the habit of reading again. Doing a little better, but would like to work back into fiction at some point. Just finished The Power of Habit (thus the reason why so many of my posts of late have been riddled with habit references ;-)). Started on The Gifts of Imperfection. Looks to be a good one too.
I bookmarked this but just got a chance to read it - I struggle enormously with some built-up issues surrounding my own perfectionism, and dread passing that perfectionist anxiety down to my son. Analysis paralysis is a huge struggle for me at work and home.
Brene Brown is a fantastic researcher, author and speaker who deals with perfectionism, vulnerability, shame, etc. Her book The Gifts of Imperfection really opened my eyes.
If you are open to a popular rather than a scholarly text, I can recommend Brene Brown (although she has the scholarly credentials), The Gifts of Imperfection. She writes a lot about the challenges of being authentic, showing your true self, in particular your vulnerability.
https://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Imperfection-Think-Supposed-Embrace-ebook/dp/B00BS03LL6
> I initially set out with a goal of 1 release per year, but I was feeling pressure to deliver more than that based on indie trends.
Libbie Hawker's book, Take Off Your Pants shaved a bit of time off my writing, even though I mentally do most of what she talks about in the book. I think it's worth reading. Even if you never want to work with an outline, by thinking about her various questions in the book, your pantsing will even improve.
I find contemporary books take me a lot less time to write than either historical or fantasyland. Even contemporary fantasyland takes about the same as just regular contemporary. So you can't compare yourself to people outside of your subgenre, either, because that often doesn't work.
At the same time, it's important to accept - as best as you can - that your progression will be slower because you aren't writing as fast as others. Some authors want to be making as much money as someone with twenty books and an established fanbase right at book 1, and get very frustrated they aren't getting this immediately. It usually doesn't work out like that, so it's all about head down and do the work as best as you can.
Read Take Off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker. She walks you through a great classic format, awesome way to start outlining.
I write with my pants half on and half off thanks to this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Take-Off-Your-Pants-Outline-ebook/dp/B00UKC0GHA
I've found "Take Off Your Pants" by Libbie Hawker to be useful. It isn't extensive, either.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UKC0GHA/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title
There are plenty of people here in the "publish once a day" club doing that, and I know some do a lot more. I definitely found committing to publishing once a day has increased the rate I'm able to comfortable write at and I also think it's made my writing better.
I bought this book a while back and thought it was pretty good, although I haven't gotten to the point where I can do this volume in an hour http://www.amazon.com/000-Words-Per-Hour-Smarter-ebook/dp/B00XIQKBT8
There are countless people who have defeated adversity and have gone on to lead successful lives (success by the way doesn't need to be defined as becoming wealthy).
We were all born with potential talents, skills and strengths, it's up to us to:
A.) find out what they are,
B) nurture and perfect them and
C) apply them with diligence and discipline
Most people don't suck at life, people that suck at life tend to project that onto everyone else to feel better about their own shortcomings.
I guess it doesn't get more life changing than that
appreciate you taking the minute to comment. definitely testing your limits and pushing on the limits of your comfort zone is an effective path to freedom + success.
if that section is of interest, this very fun + very quick read "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be" is definitely worth looking into:
https://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-How-Good-Want/dp/0714843377
Congratulations on choosing a career in entertainment! Forging a career (in entertainment) involves craft, luck, and a lobster-like tenacity! Remember that acting is as much about talent and craft as it is about luck and attrition.
You will meet people who found the demands of a profession in the arts to high a cost or the playing field to unpredictable; they will seek work and happiness elsewhere. You'll also meet those who either do not relate to your choice at all, or were not willing risk the chance of success or failure.
Do not listen to anyone who insults or diminishes your profession. The world is dominated by people very happily living lives of reasonable security and comfort. Some of these people are overconfident enough in their station in life, or secretly unhappy about it, to preach to you about the risks of your decision, the foolish choice you have made, or perhaps the "what will you do when you don't make it" line of questioning will present itself. Some intend to mock you. Do not allow them to waste your time. Do be polite. Some mean to illuminate alternatives, should one be needed. Pay heed to the risks and understand your ability to change directions in life. Respect their intent to caution. Be polite.
Go read The War of Art and Do the Work.
It's been said that being skilled in something takes roughly 10,000 hours of work. Clearly, acting must be treated as a full time job, as a business (make no mistake, it is a business, you'd be wise to educate yourself on it), and as an obsession if you want to achieve true mastery; a shot at control of your own future within the industry. You alone will decide where your time and energy are invested, and these decisions will -- in part -- determine what you can carve out for yourself.
I say "in part" because you are not the ultimate decision maker here. You rarely are in life or any type work. Others will be exerting their influence. Be aware of who they are (it's not always obvious), work with those you must, befriend those who are great.
I say "carve out" because few are the successful who waited for a "big break". A big break is a moment where preparation and tenacity meet a flash of luck. Meaningful success, in all walks of life, comes from this.
Your effort would be no different if you wanted to work on Wall Street, be an attorney, a doctor, an engineer, or own a business. Some will attempt to move up in their fields. To achieve "great things" by their own standards and possibly societies. These people face different battles but the formula for success remains largely the same. Hard work. Drive. Tenacity. Luck. And the most valuable asset you have: your network. Seriously, build it.
Good luck! See you at your call time.
Holy shit, relax! What about me making a mistake makes me a fucking low life?
People make this mistake often. It's not because the biker is less important, it's because he's less visible. It is a common mistake sitting at a light in stagnant traffic, and not seeing anyone in your mirror or to your side, make a move into the turn lane because you realize this is your turn (most common) or to make a u-turn if you realized you missed a turn or need to go back the other way (slightly less common). Both of these mistakes become mistakes when the driver assumes by (a) the empty space next to them, (b) nothing in their side mirror, and (c) the fact that they're sitting still all adds up to no harm in moving over or turning around. That's why blind spot checking is important, but there's nothing malicious or selfish about that lack of action, as stupid as it may be to not do so and as harmful as the consequences might have turned out. A metric fuckton of people forget to check their blind spots on a regular basis, and there are tons of stories to be told of near misses just as there are also tons of non-events in which failure to check the blind spot resulted in no harm because the blind spot was conveniently empty. You can read more about these kinds of mistakes in The Invisible Gorilla.
For anyone who thinks I'm defending asshole cab drivers and people who are aggressive toward bicyclists and motorcyclists, I'm not. I ride both on my days off and I'm very empathetic to the guys who are hit or scared shitless on a regular basis, because I am one of them. I'm not saying my mistakes were harmless; quite the opposite. I'd be a fool to not learn from them. My first comment and every one of my replies to it is based on the fact that this is not karma but rather a mistake followed by coincidence. Karma is more of a return on intention; I see no ill intention here. Illegal, yes. Rightfully ticketed, yes. But a return on intention? That would be saying that the cab driver intentionally cut off the biker that he did see, flipped him the bird, and laughed as he drove away because he has 4 wheels and doors to protect him. Does anyone really think that's the case in this gif?