12 Books Every Creative Needs to Read
One of my very earliest memories is of that first time I read a book all on my own, in bed, tucked under the covers with a yellow plastic flashlight filtered red, so it would be less bright (so I wouldn’t get caught!). It felt like it took me 1 million years to flip through each page of Oh the Places You’ll Go, but I made it through, and from that very moment books have been my refuge and my inspiration. When I’m looking to learn a new skill or undertake a new adventure, books are the first place I turn. So when I first got the crazy idea to turn my creativity into a career, these are the books I found that helped me along the path.
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THE WAR OF ART
BY STEVEN PRESSFIELD
It’s early morning, you’ve just gotten out of bed and you are ready to start your creative day. Today, you say to yourself, I will paint and sketch and make some real progress toward my creative goals. But first, there are still dishes on the counter, and I really need to go grab some groceries, and I never noticed how dusty the top of this desk is. I should also probably dust. And before you know it it’s mid-afternoon and your creativity has been set aside and now the day is mostly gone, and probably you’ll just be better off starting again tomorrow. That voice, that tells you to dust instead, that tells you that today was a waste, that doesn’t even allow you to get started? Its name is Resistance. And that is the focus of the War of Art.
In this book, Stephen Pressfield begins by demonstrating all the ways in which resistance rears its big dumb head in our lives, and then he outlines a plan to combat it to unlock our greatest creative potential. Pressfield focuses on the need to recognize Resistance to overcome it. It could very well change your life.
THE WORKING WOMAN’S HANDBOOK
BY PHOEBE LOVATT
This book describes itself as the ultimate guide to career satisfaction, and that is not far off. It is a collection of ideas and insights to build a successful and fulfilling creative career as a side-hustler, freelancer or creative business owner. All that juicy information is mixed together with interviews from real working women who are killing it in the real world. The book is full of great advice to those of us who are just getting started, or are already on our way to building a creative small business of any type.
This book is full of prompts and exercises to really get you thinking about what you want and how to go about getting it. So much of this book resonated with me that I literally tore a page out and taped it to my wall, because I thought I needed the daily reminder.
THE ACCIDENTAL CREATIVE
BY TODD HENRY
The Accidental Creative is not just a book for creatives (although we’ll find it valuable too!). Rather it is a book about how everyone can channel their creative energy to come up with great ideas at a moment’s notice. While the methods discussed in the book where a bit too methodical for me, the core ideas are valuable as heck. Todd Henry covers the need for focus, for developing and fostering relationships that stimulate your creativity, managing your energy so that you can do your best creative work, curating your inspiration to fill your creative well and how to use your time in a way that serves your creative goals.
While this book is clearly aimed toward business owners and entrepreneurs, there is so much value in here for us creatives as well.
THE CROSSROADS OF SHOULD AND MUST
BY ELLA LUNA
“Should” is what we feel we ought to be doing, or what is expected of us. “Must” is the thing we dream of doing, our heart’s desire. In her book, Ella Luna gives us a guide for forging a path between our shoulds and musts to find our true calling, the thing that brings us joy and fulfillment. And along the way she gives us concrete tools for uncovering what it is we truly want, mixed in with inspiring stories from artists, writers and thinkers who have also traversed this path and come out on the other side.
The Crossroads of Should and Must explains using gorgeous illustrations and powerful writing to explore the importance of mistakes, of “unlearning,” of solitude, of keeping moving, and of following your own path.
ART INC.
BY LISA CONGDON
If there is such a thing as a celebrity illustrator, Lisa Congdon is it. She is a powerhouse, and in this book she shares every single thing about turning your art into a business: from how to organize all of your digital files to how to get an agent. It’s all laid out simply and beautifully.
I read this when I was just getting started, and while some of the advice may have been lightyears ahead of where I was, it was revolutionary in getting me to start looking at my creativity as a reasonable business that other people make a living from, rather than just as an unreachable dream. The first step on any journey is believing that what you are working towards is possible, and achievable by you. This book gave me that confidence.
MY FRIEND FEAR
BY MEERA LEE PATEL
A creative life can be full of big scary steps (and little scary steps to be honest). That first step of putting paintbrush to paper (when you are sure that whatever you are painting probably won’t be any good), the step to show your work to the (big, wide, scary) world, the decision whether or not to turn your creativity into a business. And if you do decide to become a creative small business owner it only gets scarier.
In her book, My Friend Fear, Meera Lee Patel explores fear and the purpose it serves in our lives, as a friend and guide instead of just a big, looming shadow that gets in our way. Ms. Patel leads us on a journey to examine and understand our fears in order to let them guide us to become our best selves, not just as creatives, or business owners but as human beings.
ART & FEAR
BY DAVID BAYLES AND TED ORLAND
This book may have been the absolute biggest influence on me as an artist. Period. It changed my way of thinking about nearly every part of the creative process. It is a book about making ordinary art because we can’t all be Mozart. And we aren’t all Mozart. I really can’t sum it up any better than the book itself sums it up.
From the introduction: “Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place. For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius.”
If you buy one book on this list, pick this one. You won’t regret it.
SHOW YOUR WORK,
KEEP GOING, AND
STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST
BY AUSTIN KLEON
Austin Klein gets it. All of it. Every single little thing about being creative. Steal Like an Artist is the brilliant beginning: a guide to finding your footing as a creative. In Show Your Work, Austin goes even further, to encourage you to leap out of your comfort zone and show your work to the world. And in his newest edition, Keep Going, Austin gets into how to maintain your creativity over a long career, covering the struggles and realities of doing full-time creative work. If you want to make a living making art, or doing anything creative, you’ll want to pick up his books. And if you are anything like me, you won’t be able to put them down.
FINISH
BY JON ACUFF
I used to be a starter. I would start a thousand things, buy a million different art supplies, get going on dozens of different projects, and never finish one gosh darn thing. In my mind, the unfinished project always had a shot at becoming the impossibly perfect thing I had imagined when I started, but by finishing the project would always be trapped, it would never be more than the imperfect reality.
In this book, Jon Acuff tackles this problem of perfectionism from a million different angles to get us to that final goal of actually finishing things. From needing to have the perfect goal before you even start, to that moment when you lose steam at the finish line, he covers it all. If you know you are a perfectionist, this book will be a breath of fresh air. And if you don’t think you are a perfectionist, you may just find you have some of those tendencies lurking around and holding you back from being the finisher you know you can be.
THINGS ARE WHAT WE MAKE OF THEM
BY ADAM J. KURTZ
Things Are What We Make of Them is hand-written and heartfelt book that acts as a rallying cry for creatives, reminding us that we aren’t in this alone. It’s like a series of letters from a friend— an artist friend— who totally gets how hard it is some days to be on this creative path. It covers everything from how to get started, to what you do when you fail. Each and every page is perforated and ready to be taped up to your wall or framed so you can see the message you need whenever you need to see it. The book is short, so you can read it quickly, which means, you may find yourself picking it up, again and again whenever you are in a funk and need some kind words from a friend to pick you up or carry you through.
