The Creative Act: A Way of Being: The Sunday Times bestseller

The more we identify with our self as it exists through the eyes of others, the more disconnected we become and the less energy we have to draw from.

If you have two units you want to put together, whether it be two sentences or two parts of a song, there can be a tremendous amount of power in doing so without using a transition. Try finding the simplest, most elegant way to put a point across, with the least amount of information.

Whenever an instinct toward movement and evolution arises, it’s wise to listen to it. The alternative—being trapped by a fear of losing ground—is a dead end. You may lose your enjoyment and belief in the work because it’s no longer true to you. As a result, the work may ring hollow and fail to engage the audience anyway. Consider that it might not

There is no more valid metric to predict what someone else might enjoy than us liking it ourselves.

A rule is a way of structuring awareness.

The general principle is to be protective and limit people you’re working with from experiencing things that could interfere with their creative process. Limit the information to the barest of sketches. If you want creators to bring all of themselves to something, give them the most freedom to create. If you give a screenwriter a book, an outline,

If you tend to write in style x, it can be interesting to choose an artist who is the polar opposite of x. This doesn’t mean the song will be good. It’s just interesting to see where it leads. And sometimes it leads you right where you’re going. Like the other exercises, this can be applied to any craft. If you’re a painter, creating an original ne

Whatever the situation, if a task is challenging to accomplish, there’s often a way to design the surroundings to naturally encourage the performance you’re striving for.

The Beatles were inspired by American rock and roll, artists like Chuck Berry and the Shirelles. But when they played, it was different. It wasn’t different because they wanted it to be so. It was different because they were different. And the world responded. There are countless examples of imitation turning into legitimate innovation. Having a ro