See, I told you it was all true!

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the tenth precept.jpg

Over at Open Culture, there’s a nice link and summary to a TED-style talk given by Andrew Price at a software conference. The title? “The Seven Road-Tested Habits of Effective Artists.”

Of course I had to check it out. Here are the seven habits:

  1. Practice daily.

  2. Quantity over perfectionism masquerading as quality

  3. Steal without ripping off

  4. Educate yourself

  5. Give yourself a break

  6. Seek feedback

  7. Create what you want to

These are certainly cromulent, aren’t they? As I say in the introduction to the book, none of Lichtenbergianism is new or groundbreaking. Everyone who works in any creative field—Andrew Price is a 3D software jockey—knows these things.

The value of Lichtenbergianism is that it seems to be helpful to those who don’t already think of themselves as “creative.” Let’s look at how it maps onto Price’s seven habits:

  1. Practice daily.

    1. This is RITUAL, isn’t it? Find a time a place where you do the work, then protect that time and place.

  2. Quantity over perfectionism masquerading as quality

    1. ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS: Just do it, preferably a lot of it. See also: the pottery parable from Art & Fear

  3. Steal without ripping off

    1. STEAL FROM THE BEST

  4. Educate yourself

    1. STEAL FROM THE BEST, and AUDIENCE #2 (Those People Right Here)

  5. Give yourself a break

    1. TASK AVOIDANCE, GESTALT, ABANDONMENT (gestation, etc.)

  6. Seek feedback

    1. AUDIENCE #2

  7. Create what you want to

    1. AUDIENCE #3 (yourself), but also ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS/GESTALT/SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION. Also also, AUDIENCE #1, Those People Out There, as long as you understand who they are.

Other than WASTE BOOKS, he seems to have it covered.

So there: yet another person telling you how to improve your creativity—and it’s something you already know how to do!