4 ms·

How To Be Creative

30 points by ivankirigin 19y ago

gruseom 19y ago
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 19y ago
Since it's a PDF, here's a Scribd version: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2290592/6-05-HowToBeCreative http://www.scribd.com/doc/2290592/6-05-HowToBeCreative
henning 19y ago
This seems pretty reasonable, but in general beware of "manifestos". See http://www.textism.com/maunifesto/ http://www.textism.com/maunifesto/
- gruseom 19y ago
  Why? It's a genre like any other. It can be done well or poorly. http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto... http://www.screensite.org/courses/Jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/ManifestoOfSurrealism.htm http://www.screensite.org/courses/Jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/... (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!)
- hollerith 19y ago
  That Maunifesto is pretty silly.
aditya 19y ago
Hugh (http://www.gapingvoid.com http://www.gapingvoid.com) keeps updating the list, here: http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html Tons of good stuff.
Alex3917 19y ago
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 19y ago
  Didn't know it was a dupe. I find response heavily dependent on the time and day of week of submission.
  - wallflower 19y ago
    Thanks for (re)posting this. Missed the original. And it is one of the best essays I've read (and will be re-reading) in months. Would scanning for a dupe (even if tinyurl'd) be a linear search or could it be hashed in News.YC's code
  - Alex3917 19y ago
    I was actually kind of joking because it was submitted two or three days after news.yc launched.
    - ivankirigin 19y ago
      I would imagine the conversation is different if only because there are orders of magnitude more people.
- jprobitaille 19y ago
  That's a really neat idea. Even just a Flesch-Kincaid score (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid_Readability_Test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid_Readability_Test) of the dupes responses might be interesting. On a related note, I bet that the rate of dupage may say something about community quality as well
Hexstream 19y ago
Best thing I read in a while! (I'm not done yet but I'll read it all)
llimllib 19y ago
http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/03/031207.html http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/03/031207.html http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/071106.html http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/071106.html
meat-eater 19y ago
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.
t0pj 19y ago
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.
deleted 19y ago
[deleted]

30 points by ivankirigin 19y ago

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 19y ago

Since it's a PDF, here's a Scribd version: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2290592/6-05-HowToBeCreative http://www.scribd.com/doc/2290592/6-05-HowToBeCreative

henning 19y ago

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

gruseom 19y ago
Why? It's a genre like any other. It can be done well or poorly. http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto... http://www.screensite.org/courses/Jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/ManifestoOfSurrealism.htm http://www.screensite.org/courses/Jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/... (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!)
hollerith 19y ago
That Maunifesto is pretty silly.

aditya 19y ago

Hugh (http://www.gapingvoid.com http://www.gapingvoid.com) keeps updating the list, here: http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html Tons of good stuff.

Alex3917 19y ago

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 19y ago
Didn't know it was a dupe. I find response heavily dependent on the time and day of week of submission.
- wallflower 19y ago
  Thanks for (re)posting this. Missed the original. And it is one of the best essays I've read (and will be re-reading) in months. Would scanning for a dupe (even if tinyurl'd) be a linear search or could it be hashed in News.YC's code
- Alex3917 19y ago
  I was actually kind of joking because it was submitted two or three days after news.yc launched.
  - ivankirigin 19y ago
    I would imagine the conversation is different if only because there are orders of magnitude more people.
jprobitaille 19y ago
That's a really neat idea. Even just a Flesch-Kincaid score (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid_Readability_Test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid_Readability_Test) of the dupes responses might be interesting. On a related note, I bet that the rate of dupage may say something about community quality as well

Hexstream 19y ago

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

llimllib 19y ago

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/03/031207.html http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/03/031207.html http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/071106.html http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/071106.html

meat-eater 19y ago

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.

t0pj 19y ago

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.

deleted 19y ago

[deleted]