This week I have been enjoying a holiday from work. Most people would consider a week off work as blessing but sometimes, in the past, I have found these half-term breaks to be as much a curse. This has been because I have generally found it very hard to see the blessing.
This week has been different. As the first weekend began, I was blessed with the recommendation – arriving, as so many good things do, on the streams of Twitter and from two seperate sources – to read Austin Kleon’s new book, “Keep Going”. Having read it by Sunday morning, for it is not either a large book nor a difficult one, I was inspired to put into practice some of his advice.
The most immediately useful advice has been that which was reportedly given by Joseph Campbell: to create for yourself a “bliss station” – a space or time in which to work creatively. This is easy to do when you have a week away from work and I arose with my still-going-to-work wife each morning to enjoy a good, clear two-hour period of writing. It has been a powerful experience to take a seat in the same spot during roughly the same time period each day – the same time that I am using to write this post – to put words onto the page. The real challenge will begin tomorrow when I must find this space or time in a day already claimed by work. I think the most powerful advice from the same chapter will be the simple words: “Say no.”
Learning to block out the world around us can be difficult. As I write, the neighbours are shouting and can be heard through the walls of our 1930’s terraced house. Even with the phone in airplane mode and the notifications silenced, having risen long before my partner and having made my space as quiet as I can… well, they are ranting at each other and I must focus on the words before me. Anyone who seeks to make things knows what I am talking about. Austin Kleon’s advice for me has been to create a routine – or, in my case to recreate the routine I have had before – that allows every day to be a day in which something new is made. I even went as far as to watch “Groundhog Day” again – that delightful movie from 1993 – and remind myself of the value that comes from repetition.
An admixture of further tips has proven useful during this past week. Snippets of advice float around in the primordial soup of my mind and rise, unbidden but welcome, into my consciousness:
Stop using “creative” as a noun. I liked this one because it frees me to be creative: to write, to edit, to record, to edit some more, and best of all to imagine exciting situations for my roleplaying buddies.
Ignore the numbers. Oh, what a curse analytics are. Oh, what despair arises from seeing how many downloads, how many page clicks, how many followers, how many this and how many that. Screw it! This is a work in progress yet I would rather put my time into making new stuff and trust that it is worthy enough to be downloaded, clicked, followed, or whatever. This week I created more than I managed in all the 8 weeks prior. In large part, this was because I reduced my worrying about the numbers – even word counts and how many individual items I have made.
I don’t think that there is anything that was terribly new in Austin Cleon’s book. What is unique is the way in which he writes it. The manner in which the ideas are collected and expressed helped me to absorb them. The book has defied entry upon the dusty shelves in my home. It instead floats around and is picked up, occasionally, to remind me of something wise. This makes the book a charm, a token of encouragement, and an ever-flowing font of advice. It’s certainly been worth the pennies shed on the purchase. Yes, I have found it both enjoyable and useful.
Why am I writing this review, if that is what I am doing? I wish to capture the moment. It’s the point just before I return to the mania of the teaching life, the busy-ness of work, in which I am perfectly calm and ready to take on the challenge. To keep going. I believe that Austin Cleon’s little book is going to be a useful guide to the challenge. I didn’t want to keep the treasure to myself.
Game on!
