creativity
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‘Don’t shy away from discomfort’
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2 min read
“Don’t shy away from discomfort. Enter it, especially if it’s a potential door to progress. When I picked up those paint supplies as a suddenly jobless thirty-year-old with three young kids and without enough savings to coast, it was a very uncomfortable move. The left side of my brain was screaming at me to go…
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‘If I don’t try to tell it, it risks not being told’
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1 min read
“What has prompted me to write over the years is the hunch that something needs to be told and that, if I don’t try to tell it, it risks not being told. I picture myself not so much a consequential, professional writer, as a stop-gap man.” — John Berger, Confabulations
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Margaret Atwood teaches creative writing
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2 min read
This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you sign up to the course I may get a small fee as part of the transaction. Please see the disclosure for more info. Not only is the “Prophet of Dystopia” Margaret Atwood writing a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, she is also teaching an online course…
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A little more audience, a little more action
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2 min read
It’s rough and ruthless, but criticism saves you time. People aren’t trying to be mean. They’re just trying to keep you from banging your head into the same wall. Scientists can’t continue publishing the same paper over and over again. Apple can’t just release another iPhone without drastic improvements. As they say, sameness destroys creativity.…
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Staying edgy…
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2 min read
The audience already exists. The hard part is getting them to pay attention to your story. How do you gain a fan base in the era of distraction? You select a specific audience, even one person, and write for them. Different is attractive The first few years of anonymity are the hardest but they are also…
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Creativity is a form of prayer
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1 min read
We give anxiety power, and the right brain consciousness loves to conjure up imaginary bombs of self-destruction. What if instead of keeping any worries in we could express them through outward movement, some form of art. The art of fiction, the art of underwater basket weaving, the art of rolling dice — whatever you fancy…
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Highlight the remarkable
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1 min read
(via)
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Leonardo da Vinci and the Codex Huygens
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1 min read
The Codex Huygens is a Renaissance manuscript for a treatise on painting closely related to Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). Its author has been identified as the North Italian artist Carlo Urbino (ca. 1510/20–after 1585), who must have been familiar with Leonardo’s notes before they were dispersed. Some of the drawings are faithful copies of now…
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The gutless algorithm
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1 min read
In today’s age, you get picked (and judged) by algorithms and your number of social media fans. No matter your unique talent, it is the statistics that predetermine your success. But the element of surprise is not over. John Hammond discovered Billie Holiday, Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Dylan at the clubs. As a staunch…
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Memory is not the enemy of creativity
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2 min read
Great find by Alan Jacobs from the book The Craft of Thought by Mary Carruthers, where it’s pointed out that medieval culture emphasized memorization as means of innovation. The orator’s “art of memory” was not an art of recitation and reiteration but an art of invention, an art that made it possible for a person to act…
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Digital art by Manolo Gamboa Naon
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1 min read
See more on Behance
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Hoodies, cheap instant anonymizers
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1 min read
“At the heart of all of my work, I want to leave people with something that is more human—despite the facade—and to open up feeling and empathy.” — John Edmonds, Anonymous Hoodies, also known as cheap instant anonymizers.