Austin Kleon - The Goldilocks theory of creativity

Hey y’all,

Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week: 

1. My Goldilocks theory of creativity.
    
2. I gobbled up Robert D. Richardson’s short book, First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process. I’m slowly making my way through his biography, Emerson: The Mind on Fire. (This essay about his life’s work is really good.)
    
3. I’ve been picking through my wife’s shelf of architecture books. This week I enjoyed The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live, which was partly inspired by two of my all-time favorites: How Buildings Learn and A Pattern Language.
    
4. Advice for writers: Nobody wants to read a book.
    
5. I heard from so many of you about my post, “I’m not languishing, I’m dormant.” (Way too many to respond to everyone, sorry!) I wrote a followup post on “Wintering and dormancy.” 
    
6. Eye candy: painter Steve Keene is Kickstartering an art book.
    
7. Ear candy: I’ve been listening to composer Ludwig Göransson after hearing his Tenet soundtrack — I enjoyed this Song Exploder episode about his work on Black Panther. (I dump stuff I’m digging to into my 2021 playlist, which is already 9 hours long.)
    
8. RIP artist William T. Wiley. 
    
9. RIP actress Olympia Dukakis. (“No matter what you do, you’re gonna die, just like everybody else.”)
     
10. More writing advice: I’m a fan of “crummy first drafts,” but advice that works even better for me: “Just make something, anything.”