Motivation Monday: "Show Your Work" and "Herbie"

Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon

First, let’s start with an excerpt from the publisher: “Show Your Work! about why generosity trumps genius. It’s about getting findable, about using the network instead of wasting time “networking.” It’s not self-promotion, it’s self-discovery—let others into your process, then let them steal from you. Filled with illustrations, quotes, stories, and examples, Show Your Work! offers ten transformative rules for being open, generous, brave, productive.

What Worked For Me:

The book is succinct, and includes a multitude of actionable suggestions in the context of art and creativity
The author provides plenty of follow-up reading (beyond his own work). He makes a point to say how “citing one’s sources,” is critical, and does this himself.
The book includes plenty of quotes and nuggets of wisdom. Two of my favorite are as follows.

1) The “lone genius” does not exist; instead, collaboration in a “scene” is much more effective in generating new ideas and breakthroughs (regardless of discipline).
2) “Showing your work,” and letting people into your process is both different from and more effective than self-promotion. Why? It connects you to your “scene” (whatever that is) and demystifies your work. The latter is especially important because the better a person understands your work, the better they can appreciate and engage with it.

What Didn’t Work For Me:

(nit-pick) The author “shows his work,” after the main text is completed by providing some of the mind-mapping and drafting that went into the book. I wish the text was a bit bigger, though, and that this portion wasn’t so compressed (e.g. with multiple pages of notes crammed onto a single e-page).
(nit-pick) I thought some of the interstitial art was kind of tacky (e.g. the pictures of pages torn from books with everything blacked out with a sharpie save a few words like: “on to the next pipe dream”).

Conclusion:

I enjoyed this work. It was breezy without being insubstantial, and I’m sure I’ll take at least some of the lessons on into my own creative endeavors. I also appreciate that the work offers plenty of suggestions for continued reading; I plan to pick up at least a few of the works mentioned.

Check it out .

Herbie by Rich Cohen

Here’s the start to the publisher’s pitch; it should give you an idea as to whether this work is right for you: “Every life reaches that crucial intersection, the place where you must choose your fate, or have it chosen for you. For best-selling author Rich Cohen (The Fish That Ate the Whale, The Last Pirate of New York), it came in a writing workshop senior year in college, when, at 17, he had to knuckle under to a ruthless professor or make a righteous, self-defeating stand.“

What Worked For Me:

Short, and can be completed in a single sitting (2-ish hour run time)
“Free” (with audible membership)
A loving portrayal of the author’s father (and a coming-of-age story in their journey to becoming an author)

What Didn’t Work For Me:

One of the main conflicts of the story (ie between the author and then the author’s father and the unnamed “Professor”) isn’t really resolved until the last few minutes of the book, and even then, only in a kind of hand-waving, “tall-tale” kind of way. I know that isn’t ultimately the point of the work, but since so much of the narrative is framed around this conflict I expected something a bit more substantial.
(nit-pick) In the second chapter, there’s a section where the audio quality changes and the presenter seems to have a different voice. It doesn’t affect the content of the work, but it was a minor distraction

Conclusion:

I enjoyed my time with this work; it was great company for a 2 hour commute. I wouldn’t call it life-changing, but it is certainly life-affirming. If you want a feel-good coming of age story with a sprinkling of tale tales and wry humor, this one’s worth a look.

Check it out .