Category: Creator Confidential
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The case for consistency
On its own, consistency isn’t a particularly magical virtue; your work won’t magically improve on its own just because you show up every day. Deliberate practice and improving taste are still crucial parts of the practice. Rather, as a structure, consistency tends to build something of a keystone habit. If you commit to writing every…
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It’s the climb
If you’re considering using artificial intelligence and generative technology in your creative process, just remember these two parables. First: An old man in Calcutta would walk to get water from a well every day. He’d carry a clay pot and lower it by hand slowly, all the way down, careful not to let it hit…
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“I don’t believe in titles, I believe in work”
Via Abloh-isms by Larry Walsh; a sentiment shared by Armando Zambrano and Karl Lagerfeld. The original interview with this gem—supposedly here—has disappeared from the internet; another reminder to rescue lost stories and collect them. Each idea gets new life when it’s mentioned. See also multi-hyphenate careers.
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Graceful embarrassment
Porsche recently shipped its first NFT, to little traction. It’s a 91-year-old company, turning 92 this year, with tons of cash in the bank. If you were being critical of it, you’d probably make the case that the team should’ve known better. It should have spent more time building ties to the community. It should…
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Contentions: Describing your work
The way you describe your work is incredibly important. Not only is it how other people know what it is you do; it’s also a chance to show what you believe in, and to make the case they should believe it too. For example, Debbie Millman distinguishes between the image of “personal brand,” and the…
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Solomon’s Paradox
“Solomon’s paradox of wise reasoning, in which performance of wisdom differs when reasoning on an issue in one’s own life vs. another’s life, has been supported by robust evidence,” write Wentao Xu, Kaili Zhang, and Fengyan Wang in Frontiers in Psychology. Sometimes, we’re too close to the problem; maybe it’s directly in our blind spot.…
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Ship it anyway
There’s a story Nahnatchka Khan tells about recruiting Ali Wong as a writer for Fresh Off the Boat; Khan asked Wong’s manager for samples and a spec script, and receives a nine page script—a fraction of what she was expecting. Still, Khan had seen Wong’s standup and familiar with her work, and she was interested…
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On book promotion
Anne Trubek, founder and publisher of Belt Publishing, wrote a really cool piece about book promotion at her Substack, Notes from a Small Press. I’d excerpt it, but the whole piece is concise and worth a read: A brief portrait of Phoebe Mogharei, Belt’s marketing and publicity director, at work The randomness and necessity of…
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Shipping early as self-sabotage
Once you’ve shipped a lot of work, you start chasing it. You no longer fear shipping or releasing work; in fact, you might be hooked on it. Ship early, ship often, you think. The challenge changes. Anyone can ship early, even amateurs. People use shipping to phone in bad work all the time; that’s how…
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Need vs. Want
You can fail at things you love, you can fail at things you hate. One implication is: duh, do the things you love, because you could fail either way. You might as well fail at something you love. That’s only one dimension to life though. Doing what you love—or think you love—certainly can be a…