The Creative Mind
the inner workings and challenges of life as a creative
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The Creative Mind
Increasingly, the work that stand out will be more raw and incomplete (because — by definition — new ideas haven’t been optimized because…they are new).
Eno explains:
"[On one end, you have] auto-tune that perfectly puts music into tune…which is sort of flawless and faultless. [In contrast, the other side] is clumsy, awkward, crude and unfinished... See more
Eno explains:
"[On one end, you have] auto-tune that perfectly puts music into tune…which is sort of flawless and faultless. [In contrast, the other side] is clumsy, awkward, crude and unfinished... See more
At some point while I was trying to write a dissertation as a parent of a preschooler and an infant, I attended a workshop from which I remember exactly one thing: Touch Your Project Every Day. We all lead busy lives, one of the organizers explained, and it can be difficult to find long stretches of time to focus and work through such a large and... See more
Sara Fredman • "I Had to Come to Terms With the Fact That Kids Are Interesting"
For his first 6 years of trying to be a songwriter, Paul Simon wrote terrible songs. “They were all terrible,” his biographer Robert Hilburn said, “I found his old demos—there’s about 50 of them—and it’s unbelievable: there isn’t one good song.” Finally, in the fall of 1963, Simon made a vow: After spending those first 6 years mostly “copying what
... See moreThe legendary designer Paula Scher said, “I still [a little over 5 decades into her career] make things that are pretty awful. It’s part of the process. You have periods of tremendous productivity and other periods where you’re fallow. The fallow periods are really important because that’s where you’re figuring something it out. You have to work... See more
Billy Oppenheimer • SIX at 6: Swiss Cheese, in the Heights, Wylie Dufresne, STORY, Owning Your Style, and the Fallow Periods
I now understand that sometimes we have talents in precisely the areas that are most challenging to us. Strikes me that this is far more normal than being a total natural or a supernatural savant.
If you feel like you do your art in spite of yourself, you ain’t alone, welcome to the club.
If you feel like you do your art in spite of yourself, you ain’t alone, welcome to the club.
Junot Díaz • Writing in Spite of Yourself
To really like my work I have to look at it with different eyes. I have to forget everyone who did it better or faster, and remind myself that no one has ever done it quite the way I have. I have to remind myself that the people I compare myself to probably compare themselves to others and that if they let their self-doubt keep them from creating... See more
