
How To Be Creative - ivankirigin
http://www.changethis.com/6.HowToBeCreative
======
gruseom
Wow. There is some great and striking stuff in there. Examples:

 _Your wee voice doesn't want you to sell something. Your wee voice wants you
to make something._

 _If you try to make something just to fit your uninformed view of some
hypothetical market, you will fail. If you make something special and powerful
and honest and true, you will succeed._

 _Frankly, I think youʼre better off doing something on the assumption that
you will NOT be rewarded for it, that it will NOT receive the recognition it
deserves, that it will NOT be worth the time and effort invested in it._

 _Nobody cares. Do it for yourself._

A very lively and, in places, shocking piece that I am going to have to
reflect over.

------
inklesspen
Since it's a PDF, here's a Scribd version:

<http://www.scribd.com/doc/2290592/6-05-HowToBeCreative>

------
aditya
Hugh (<http://www.gapingvoid.com>) keeps updating the list, here:
<http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html>

Tons of good stuff.

------
llimllib
<http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/03/031207.html>

<http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/071106.html>

------
t0pj
Loved the read! I can relate to some of this. Usually, my (unorthodox)
creativity in coding and data management does not go over very well with
others.

I've learned (been somewhat conditioned) to give a canned response when asked
for my (mostly crazy) thoughts nowadays:

"You're not going to like what I have to say and you're definitely not going
to like how I say it."

After this, they usually don't like what I've said nor how I said it.

I keep marching on though, knowing that I need to work on those communications
skills of mine.

------
Alex3917
Apropos of this being a dupe, I wonder if it would be reasonable to judge
drift in the quality of a social news site readerbase via the response to the
same content submitted at different time periods.

~~~
ivankirigin
Didn't know it was a dupe.

I find response heavily dependent on the time and day of week of submission.

~~~
Alex3917
I was actually kind of joking because it was submitted two or three days after
news.yc launched.

~~~
ivankirigin
I would imagine the conversation is different if only because there are orders
of magnitude more people.

------
meat-eater
Very good article. Gave me a lot to think about. I especially found the "Cash
and Sex" theory very interesting. I've always been into the whole young
starving artist fantasy and this article somehow articulates the rationale
behind some of my personal decisions.

------
Hexstream
Best thing I read in a while! (I'm not done yet but I'll read it all)

------
henning
This seems pretty reasonable, but in general beware of "manifestos". See
<http://www.textism.com/maunifesto/>

~~~
gruseom
Why? It's a genre like any other. It can be done well or poorly.

[http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-
manifesto...](http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-
manifesto.html)

[http://www.screensite.org/courses/Jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/...](http://www.screensite.org/courses/Jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/ManifestoOfSurrealism.htm)

(Actually, I wouldn't have said MacLeod's piece was a manifesto; it's more of
a personal essay. Regardless of that, you said one thing I think is the kiss
of death for this kind of writing: you called it reasonable!)

