Currently Reading the War of Art by Steven Pressfield
I always like to have one foot in a book about creativity, or creating, or how to improve your life. I can't read these kinds books for more than a few pages at a time because they give me so much to think about and process. I can't recommend this book enough. I'm about 3/4ths through it and there's so much I can relate to and apply.
One idea he stresses is that of resistance and how real it is. He spends plenty of time defining it, casting all kinds of light on it so that you can identify it easily in your work. But then he goes the next step and shares ways to fight it, to stab a sword into it and kill it dead...for a day. It always comes back the next day.
The latter half of the book is about the muse, and how we can tap into creative energy and use it.
I'll leave you with one thing I've been thinking about a lot: The gravitational pull of your work.
On page 108 Pressfield says, “When we sit down each day to do our work, power concentrates around us.” It costs us energy to produce something, but when you show up to do it (and by that I mean actually putting pen to paper) the gods of creativity lend their hand and help. At the end of the day you have a small mass of creative matter that's managed to hold itself together. The more you work on it, the more creative mass your project builds, until it has enough pull to get you out of bed each morning and suck you into it every day. However, leave it alone for a day, or a week, or a month, and that energy dissipates. It starts to lose mass and as a consequence has less pull. If you let go of an idea it floats away instead of falling towards the center of the mass.
All this to say, get up and do your creative work and be consistent. It's the only way you'll ever finish a thing.
-Jake
Also reading:
- Batman: White Knight: What if the Joker was a good guy? Really good story and art. Like REALLY GOOD.
- DUNE: To much going on to explain... but I'll try: a inter-galacti-political storyline with giant sand worms. I read the first half last year, but didn't finish before I left Greenport. Picking it up where I left off.
- All-New X-Men Vol 3: The X-Men from the 60s are sent to the future to stop their present day selves from making a mess. I've been reading X-Men off and on since the early 90s and it's a huge convoluted mess, but man I love it.