Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

13: All creative work exists in a context and is not created from nothing.

13: Don’t feel pressure to create something original, which can paralyze you and prevent you from acting at all.

15: Your ideas come from what you choose to expose yourself to. This is influence.

18: Indiscriminate collecting is wasteful and lazy. Carefully choose which ideas to collect. Which art to expose yourself to.

20: Instead of thinking of yourself as original, see yourself as the next generation in a long line of creators with each drawing on the work of their predecessors.

28: In order to discover what kind of things you want to make, you must make them. Don’t think it up, literally make it up. Act to discover. Faith precedes the miracle. Fake it till you make it. Pretend to be an artist until you become one.

33: Copying is not plagiarism—trying to pass off someone else’s work as your own—it’s reverse engineering someone else’s work in order to understand how it works.

35: Copy your heroes—people whose work inspires you. But don’t just try to imitate their style, try to learn how they see the world. You don’t just want to produce something that looks like what they produce, you want to internalize the way they view the world.

36: We will fail to be a good copy of our heroes, and that failure will be what sets us apart and makes us original.

43: Make what you want to use, not what you know how to make. If you want it and it doesn’t exist, make it.

64: Obscurity is a great gift to an artist. It removes pressure to make certain things and frees you to experiment and make whatever you want. I haven’t found my style yet. Embrace that. No one cares. Do wacky stuff when the stakes are low.

87: Seek, follow, and hang out with those who are more talented and interesting than you are.

91: Write fan letter out of love and admiration, not needing a response. Consider doing this publicly such as in a blog post.

101: Learn to manage your money so that you’re free to create. Do this by learning to budget, saying no to things you can’t afford, and keeping your day job. The less you worry about money, the more creative you can be.

101: Working on your creative project regularly is more important than working on it a lot. Routine > binge. Do the work every day. No weekends, holidays, or sick days.

112: Identify and embrace my limitations. Choosing what NOT to do can be more important than choosing what to do.