Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad

by Austin Kleon

“None of us know what will happen. Don’t spend time worrying about it. Make the most beautiful thing you can. Try to do that every day. That’s it.” —Laurie Anderson

“What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly

same, and nothing that you did mattered?” It’s the question Phil has to answer to advance the plot of the movie, but it’s also the question we have to answer to advance the plot of our lives.

The creative life is not linear. It’s not a straight line from point A to point B. It’s more like a loop, or a spiral, in which you keep coming back to a new starting point after every project. No matter how successful you get, no matter what level of achievement you reach, you will never really “arrive.”

The truly prolific artists I know always have that question answered, because they have figured out a daily practice—a repeatable way of working that insulates them from success, failure, and the chaos of the outside world. They have all identified what they want to spend their time on, and they work at it every day, no matter what.

We have so little control over our lives. The only thing we can really control is what we spend our days on. What we work on and how hard we work on it. It might seem like a stretch, but I really think the best thing you can do if you want to make art is to pretend you’re starring in your own remake of Groundhog Day: Yesterday’s over, tomorrow may never come, there’s just today and what you can do with it.

“It is only when you and I add the burden of those two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow, that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives men mad. It is remorse or bitterness for something which happened yesterday or the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us therefore do our best to live but one day at a time.”

The real creative journey is one in which you wake up every day, like Phil, with more work to do.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

“A schedule defends from chaos and whim,” writes Annie Dillard. “It is a net for catching days.” When you don’t know what to do next, your routine tells you.

When you don’t have much time, a routine helps you make the little time you have count. When you have all the time in the world, a routine helps you make sure you don’t waste it. I’ve written while holding down a day job, written full-time from home, and written while caring for small children. The secret to writing under all those conditions was having a schedule and sticking to it.

And also being a white male married and having help around having no serious financial stress no daily crazy turmoil in a chaotic country having a place to focus on work and some other privileges

Kafka scribbled into the night while his family slept. Plath wrote in the morning before her children woke up. Balzac slugged fifty cups of coffee a day. Goethe sniffed rotten apples. Steinbeck had to sharpen twelve pencils before starting his work.

there is no perfect, universal routine for creative work.

You can’t just borrow your favorite artist’s daily routine and expect it to work for you. Everyone’s day is full of different obligations—jobs, families, social lives—and every creative person has a different temperament.

Where are the

free spaces in your schedule? What could you cut out of your day to make time? Are you an early riser or a night owl? (I’ve met very few people who love working in the afternoon. “I detest this mongrel time, neither day nor night,” wrote Charles Dickens.) Are there silly rituals or superstitions that get you in a creative mood? (I’m writing these words with a pencil, painted to look like a cigarette, dangling from my lips.)

A little imprisonment—if it’s of your own making—can set you free. Rather than restricting your freedom, a routine gives you freedom by protecting you from the ups and downs of life and helping you take advantage of your limited time, energy, and talent. A routine establishes good habits that can lead to your best work.

My life right now is like a prison and this is what i do to make the best of it

“The simple thing I’ve learned over the years is just to have a starting point and once you have a starting point the work seems to make itself,” he says.

Great idea i can write what to write avout in advance ?

“Someday/Maybe” list.

When I’m stuck in the morning and I don’t know what to write about in my diary, I’ll modify the pros-and-cons list. I’ll draw a line down the middle of the page, and in one column I’ll list what I’m thankful for, and in the other column, I’ll write down what I need help with. It’s a paper prayer.

“A list is a collection with purpose,”

Each list is like an organized diary of the year. It comforts me to look over previous years, to see what’s changed and what hasn’t.

“Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.”

write down a list of what you want to get done tomorrow. Then forget about it. Hit the pillow with a clear mind. Let your subconscious work on stuff while you’re sleeping.

Creativity is about connection—you must be connected to others in order to be inspired and share your own work—but it is also about disconnection. You must retreat from the world long enough to think, practice your art, and bring forth something worth sharing with others. You must play a little hide-and-seek in order to produce something worth being found.

Silence and solitude are crucial.

“bliss station”:

This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation.

Note that Campbell says you must have a room or a certain hour.

Not just a sacred space, but also a sacred time.

When the kids are asleep or at school or day care, even a kitchen table can become a bliss station.

What’s clear is that it’s healthiest if we make a daily appointment to disconnect from the world so that we can connect with ourselves. Kids, jobs, sleep, and a thousand other things will get in the way, but we have to find our own sacred space, our own sacred time.

and

There are so many better ways to wake up: Head to your bliss station, eat breakfast, stretch, do some exercises, take a walk, run, listen to Mozart, shower, read a book, play with your kids, or just be silent for a bit. Even if it’s for fifteen minutes, give yourself some time in the morning to not be completely horrified by the news.

“Keep your eye on your inner world and keep away from ads and idiots and movie stars.”

“The phone gives us a lot but it takes away three key elements of discovery: loneliness, uncertainty, and boredom. Those have always been where creative ideas come from.”

All three elements of my life right now

I find planes to be a terrific place to get work done.

Airplane mode is not just a setting on your phone: It can be a whole way of life.

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes—including you.”

“I must decline, for secret reasons.”

“I’m sorry, he’s not in.”

Saying “no” to the world can be really hard, but sometimes it’s the only way to say “yes” to your art and your sanity.

“I paint with my back to the world.”

Lots of people want to be the noun without doing the verb. They want the job title without the work.

If you wait for someone to give you a job title before you do the work, you might never get to do the work at all.

If and when you finally get to be the noun—when that coveted job title is bestowed upon you by others—don’t stop doing your verb.

Forget the nouns altogether. Do the verbs.

“I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process.” —R. Buckminster Fuller

When my children are playing, they are deeply invested in their work. They focus their gazes like laser beams. They scrunch up their faces in concentration. When they can’t get their materials to do what they want them to do, they throw epic tantrums.

The great artists are able to retain this sense of playfulness throughout their careers. Art and the artist both suffer most when the artist gets too heavy, too focused on results.