This is a summary of Steal Like An Artist, a short book that encourages you to just start creating. Don’t worry about whether your work is original (nothing is, anyway) or if it’s any good. You will learn more about who you are through creating and sharing your work.
Buy Steal Like an Artist at: Amazon | Kobo (affiliate links)
Key Takeaways from Steal Like an Artist
- Nothing is original. As evident from the title of Steal Like An Artist, this is the central idea of the book.
- William Ralph Inge said: “What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.”
- Every “new” idea is a mashup of previous ideas. You are a mashup of your influences in life. Old ideas that have been around for ages tend to be more durable and easily accepted anyway.
- Collect others’ good ideas. The more you collect, the more you can choose from to remix.
- Even the idea behind this book – that nothing is original – is an ancient idea.
- Go deep by following references.
- Going deeper than others will let you get ahead of others.
- By going deep you can get a better sense of the way someone thinks. If you just skim the surface of someone’s work, your work will just be a knockoff. [This seems to contradict slightly what he said before about collecting lots of good ideas from many people. So if you don’t go deep, but have many influences, you can still avoid being a “knockoff”.]
- Start before you know who you are. Copy others if you must (giving credit where appropriate).
- You will find out who you are in the process of making things.
- We are incapable of making perfect copies anyway. So if we copy our heroes and fall short, we end up being “original” anyway. Kleon refers to Conan O’Brien talking about how comedians try to emulate their heroes, fall short, and end up doing their own thing – Johnny Carson tried to be Jack Benny; David Letterman tried to be Johnny Carson; and Conan O’Brien tried to be David Letterman.
- Don’t write what you know, write what you like – e.g. fanfic, sequels.
- Step away from the computer and use your hands – it will give you a satisfying feeling that you’re actually making something. Typing on a keyboard feels too abstract.
- The computer is not great at generating ideas because it’s too easy to edit ourselves as we create.
- Try to do some of your creative work away from the computer – e.g. set up a separate physical workstation if possible, with paper, pens, sticky notes ,etc.
- Have several projects going so you can bounce back and forth between them as you get bored.
- Don’t feel like you have to discard other passions to focus on one.
- Don’t worry about having something to connect your various interests together. Just pursue it and, one day when you look back, you will see connections.
- Share your work.
- When you’re starting out, no one knows who you are and you’re not accountable to anyone. So you have the freedom to experiment and do whatever you want without any pressure.
- You can share your work before it’s finished – the Internet can be an incubator for ideas that aren’t fully developed yet. (But don’t share everything.)
- Don’t seek validation from others – you can’t control how others will react to your work.
- Be boring and consistent. Establish a routine that allows time for creative pursuits everyday, and stick to it – no sick days or holidays.
- Get a physical wall calendar that lets you mark off each day that you’ve done work. It feels rewarding to see the progress and will incentivise you not to skip a day.
- Keep a logbook where you log the things you do every day – e.g. food you ate, project you worked on, friends you saw, etc. Entries should be much shorter than a proper diary. The logbook will pay off over time when you look back on it.
- Give yourself constraints. Limitless possibilities can be paralyzing. Constraints can help get over a creative block.
Other Interesting Points
- There is an economic theory that if you average the incomes of your five closest friends, it will be pretty close to your own income. [I hadn’t heard this before. I had heard that you are the average of your five closest friends, but not applied to your income.]
- The Beatles started out as a cover band.
- Anger can be a good motivator. Sometimes Kleon lies in bed and read e-mails and Twitter until he gets fired up enough to get out of bed and start writing.
- Dr Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat with only 236 words. So his editor bet that he couldn’t write a book with only 50 words. Dr Seuss then wrote Green Eggs and Ham.
- Don’t spend too much time in retrospection. You can’t move forward if you’re always looking back.
My Thoughts
I liked Steal Like an Artist. I came across this book as it was mentioned on Ali Abdaal’s YouTube channel. Ali already mentioned what was in the book (i.e. nothing is original, share your work before you feel ready) but reading the actual book still felt inspirational.
The book is a very short and easy read. It was only 56 pages long on my e-reader – and that’s including lots of pictures! Kleon does not belabor his points. Steal Like an Artist gives you the comfort and reassurance needed to start making stuff without worrying about whether it’s original. It helped me get over some of my doubts about starting this blog, which is certainly far from original.
Buy Steal Like an Artist at: Amazon | Kobo <– These are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase. I’d be grateful if you considered supporting the site in this way! 🙂
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