Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
A warm, reassuring hug for the faltering artist at heart
Working through Steal Like an Artist feels familiar—comforting—in the best ways. Kleon’s slightly chaotic illustrations, blunt tone, and straightforward writing make this book a quick read that’s easy to jump into. Chapters are understandable at a glance. It’s leagues beyond derivative, more like the archetype you were always meant to find your way back to.
In fact, you’ve probably heard some of this book’s lessons paraphrased a few times over:
- Nothing is original; all art is inspired by (if not outright stolen from) what’s come before it.
- You can fuel inspiration by staying curious and keeping score. Jot down every passing idea that flits through your head. Make note of every interesting tidbit you encounter.
- There’s nothing to figure out or prove before you can start making — if you want to, simply do.
Ring any bells?
What Steal Like an Artist lacks in explicit how-to, it makes up for with practical, down-to-earth advice for reshaping your mindset. When you’re struggling with impostor syndrome and trying to recenter yourself, or just need a fresh dose of “how to look at the world and see creative opportunity,” this is the book to do it.
Anamnesis by Samantha Leigh
Find the story you’re too afraid to tell
Want to follow a fresh line of thought? Break out of a rut? Kick creative block’s butt?
Read outside your wheelhouse. It helps fire off different parts of your brain so you can think through creative problems in new, unexpected ways. You might try reading sci-fi, or poetry, or even playing a narrative tarot game like this one.
Anamnesis, meaning a remembrance of the past, or, the recollection of innate knowledge from a previous existence, isn’t really a book or even a journal. It’s a guided interactive experience where participation is fully required.
You’ll draw cards as you go, moving through open-ended prompts. The questions it asks of you are rooted in honesty and reflection. There’s a lot to be gleaned if you’re willing to stay open and be surprised by the answers you find.
When we acknowledge that creativity thrives on constraint, and artistic rules are our friends, it’s actually freeing. It allows us to let go of thought patterns we’re trapped in. It offers a quick way to embrace creativity. Instead of thinking outside the box, we figure out how to make the box work for us.
Anamnesis is one unique framework to get you to that mental place.
So “when you are ready, take a deep breath and wake up.”
Brand New You by Room of Fulfilled Dreams
Uncover and cultivate your professional creative brand
Wildly stylish cliff notes from an international training course on personal branding. What could be better? Brand New You offers 7 exercises—from journal prompts to Mad Libs style fill-in-the-blank to more classic think-and-reflect questionnaires—to help you work through the steps in your own creative branding pyramid.
The original organizers of the training course, Room of Fulfilled Dreams, wanted to introduce young creatives to the power of a distinct, marketable brand. As you follow along, try to do more than answer. Try to capture the unique voice, style, or outlook which is part of what sets you apart from your peers.
This is a book that asks you to not only focus on your own goals, but to take a look at what your audience has in mind, too. Understand them and you will understand new ways to move forward yourself.
The Zen Habits Beginner’s Guide to Mindfulness by Leo Babauta
Meditation practices to “train your mind, shift your focus, and deal with struggles”
What’s important about this book is its focus on dealing with feelings in productive ways—just as art itself might help us do.
We don’t know about you, but for us, emotions have a real impact on how and what we create. (Creative block, anyone? Fear of not being good enough? Not making enough progress?)
If you’ve had prior experience with meditation, you know it can be difficult and frustrating. Yet there isn’t a single one of us who doesn’t have to work through difficult and frustrating things every day.
By teaching how to:
- become aware
- stay grounded
- let go of unhelpful thoughts
- and more often be OK with the things we face
this Beginner’s Guide can actually help you learn how to be a more open, resilient, fearless creator.
Self-Care Workbook by Solange van Dijk
Remembering that you’re a human person with human needs—a how-to guide
Ever battled burnout? Generally felt mental and physical exhaustion, creative depletion? Maybe some sort of existential doom about your future as a creator? Or maybe you just want to recommit to rest and recharge.
Either way, creative work can take a lot out of you. Take time to refill your cup before there’s nothing left to pour from it.
That’s where a self-care guide like this one really steps up. This is an outside reminder, a permission slip, a written accountability buddy, to slow down, remember, and listen to your own needs at least from time to time.
Let’s leave the tortured, unwell artist stereotype behind. A happier, more fulfilled individual has better capacity and more energy to do their best work. And we know you’re ready to do your best.
Time Management for Creative People by Mark McGuinness
A thoughtful way to break out of your more unhelpful, unproductive habits
Heads up. This book says: actually don’t get up at 5 AM and squirrel away in your attic in order to create. Not if you’re most productive at night and prefer new spaces to focus your mind.
Actually don’t try to force yourself into entirely new habits and ways of being. Pursuit of some generalized ideal instead of finding what works for you is how people get frustrated and give up before they’ve begun.
Mark McGuinness’s Time Management for Creative People offers the frameworks and methodologies you can use to kick your butt into high gear. But he isn’t interested in blanket statements of, “Here’s how I do it and this is what you need to do, too.”
He offers his own, and other famous, examples before showing us the options and letting us make our own way.
This book says: see how prioritization is normally organized. But know that this is how other creators actually organized their priorities. There’s no one true path. So ask yourself these questions to figure out what endeavors take priority for you. Ask yourself when, where, and how you’ve previously accomplished the most to figure out how you can accomplish more again in the future.
Creative Problem-Solving: Overcoming Functional Fixedness by Colorado College
Work out your brain with this marriage of logical & flexible thinking
The Creative Problem-Solving practice book is a logical, repeatable approach to forcing creative thinking. It posits the question: How can we reimagine common items we’re all familiar with? How can you defamiliarize it?
Flexible thinking empowers creativity, so why not stretch that muscle from time to time? This is a relatively fast read (especially once you’re familiar with the introductory concepts), but the thought exercise is one you could probably spend a couple hours mulling over. What’s especially great about this piece is its broad application.
You might solve this problem in any number of ways, and you can map your answers with almost any medium — written descriptions to sketches to 3D models. And depending on which object you choose to investigate, the practice can be as simple or difficult as you’d like to make it.
