Category: Creator Confidential
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Cold-blooded creative work
Patrick Dubroy writes: You see, warm-blooded animals — like humans or mice — have a stable body temperature that stays within a pretty narrow range. For humans, it’s around 37 degrees Celsius. A few degrees higher or lower and we’re in big trouble. Cold-blooded animals like the painted turtle can adapt their metabolism to the…
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No bad ideas, no good ideas
One of my teachers told me about a student who was generally quiet, but when they spoke up, they said something brilliant. I always wished that quality for myself, but unfortunately, that’s not the case at all. That’s not how my brain works naturally. My good ideas are usually accompanied by bad ideas as well.…
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Write it down for someone else
Whenever you can, however you can, stored and published in some digital and searchable format for posterity.
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Three things about competition
It’s awards season. In between discussing who should’ve gotten what, it’s also a good time to consider the relationship between competitions and creative work. In many ways, it’s always awards season—30 under 30, weekly funding announcements, grants and fellowships, Olympics, etc: Competitions pay the bills Competitions take place because we value stories, drama, and craft.…
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Foundation first
One philosophy or heuristic I have been drawn to recently is to prioritize foundational activities. Personal life: wash your face, work out, eat healthy and regularly, feed your cat, shower, do laundry, present yourself, journal, write, draw, etc. Do things that make you feel alive. This is actually the most important foundation. Professional life: keep…
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Three things about Dan Runcie building Trapital
Dan Runcie has built something really special with Trapital. Chenell Basilio breaks down how he does it. Some notable points: Write what you want to live: “Dan didn’t start Trapital because he was the most experienced, knowledgeable, Hip-Hop insider. He became an most experienced, knowledgeable, Hip-Hop insider because he started Trapital.” (via Jay Clouse.) I’ve…
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Value your ignorance
My friend Abdel’s lament, after watching a student “solve” the Rubik’s Cube on his desk just like the YouTube video showed her how: “You need to value your ignorance.” Ross Gay, The Book of Delights When I played video games as a young boy, I constantly referred to cheat codes and guides. I wanted to…
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A new Bloomberg
Something interesting happened today. Semafor reports: Sherwood, the media arm of the retail trading platform, Robinhood has poached a half-dozen high profile journalists to lead its Spring launch. Walter Hickey, the Business Insider data guru who won a Pulitzer for his role in a graphic novel-style treatment of the oppression of Uyghurs, who will be…
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Three lessons from Peter Yang
I recently worked on a post with Peter Yang for the Figma blog. While the post is about 10 rules for making products that customers love, I learned a lot about Peter’s work as a creator while doing research for the post. Peter works a full-time job as a product lead at Roblox, and writes…
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The 90% tax on your creative work
Mahershala Ali says: You really only actually act between action and cut. 10% of the time. The rest of it is prepping for [it]—the wardrobe, the costume elements of it, the building the psychology and getting ready for the piece itself. Actually getting to act is such a miniscule part of the experience that you…