2022.3.16
This is my first English book review for the second English book I entirely finished reading in 2022!
The book is brief and there is not a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary so I read it in two hours. The author listed 10 approaches for ordinary individuals to share creativity and get discovered. The book demonstrated how to think about one’s work as a never-ending process, how to share one’s process in a way that attracts people who might be interested in what they do, and how to deal with the ups and downs of putting oneself and one’s work out in the world.
In a nutshell, it offers ten transformative rules for being open, generous, brave, and productive.
The author’s website is worth a look:
Austin Kleon is a writer who draws. In his book, you will find a series of concise pictures that include the core ideas he wanted to express. Readers can also grasp the major themes of this chapter through the images. My blog and writing, I believe, are also a way of showing my work.
The book contains 10 ways:
- You Don’t Have to Be a Genius.
- Think Process, Not Product.
- Share Something Small Everyday.
- Open Up Your Cabinet of Curiosities.
- Tell Good Stories.
- Teach What You Know.
- Don’t Turn Into Human Spam.
- Learn to Take a Punch.
- Sell Out.
- Stick Around.
This statement impressed me when I was reading:
The world is changing at such a rapid rate that it’s turning us all into amateurs. Even for professionals, the best way to flourish is to retain an amateur’s spirit and embrace uncertainty and the unknown.
I am majoring in Software Engineering, and I am convinced that I need to learn many cutting-edge technologies with an open mind and curiosity.
Small thing, over time. can get big.
In this fast-paced world of technology, it is important to stay curious and open to learn and apply leading-edge software and methods.
There are serval sentences in the book that I learned something from:
If you look back closely at history, many of the people who we think of as lone geniuses were actually part of “a whole scene of people who were supporting each other, looking at each other’s work, copying from each other, stealing ideas, and contributing ideas.”
Scenius doesn’t take away from the achievements of those great individuals; it just acknowledges that good work isn’t created in a vacuum and that creativity is always, in some sense, a collaboration, the result of a mind connected to other minds.
Amateurs might lack formal training, but they’re all lifelong learners, and they make a point of learning in the open, so that others can learn from their failures and successes.
Find a scenius, pay attention to what others are sharing, and then start taking note of what they’re not sharing.
Dig into almost every overnight success story and you’ll find about a decade’s worth of hard work and perseverance.
A daily dispatch is even better than a résumé or a portfolio because it shows what we’re working on right now. When the artist Ze Frank was interviewing job candidates, he complained, “When I ask them to show me work, they show me things from school, or from another job, but I’m more interested in what they did last weekend.”
Fill your website with your work and your ideas and the stuff you care about. Over the years, you will be tempted to abandon it for the newest, shiniest social network. Don’t give in. Don’t let it fall into neglect. Think about it in the long term. Stick with it, maintain it, and let it change with you over time.
Every email you send, every text, every conversation, every blog comment, every tweet, every photo, every video—they’re all bits and pieces of a multimedia narrative you’re constantly constructing.
As every writer knows, if you want to be a writer, you have to be a reader first.
The more people come across your work, the more criticism you’ll face.
Look for something new to learn, and when you find it, dedicate yourself to learning it out in the open.
All you have to do is show your work.