Isaac Asimov on Creativity

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #014 • 2.5 min. read

How do people get new ideas?

This is a question many of us wonder, even as creatives. We don't always understand how we come up with new ideas. But in a world increasingly powered by AI, copy/paste creativity, reboots, and remakes, new ideas (originality) will make your work stand out from the sea of sameness.

So, how do we get new ideas?

Back in 1959, Arthur Obermayer, a scientist at Allied Research Associates in Boston, was part of a team tasked by the government to think "out of the box" to come up with creative approaches for a ballistic missile defense system. He asked his friend, ​Isaac Asimov​, a prolific sci-fi author who wrote and edited over 500 books in his 53-year career, to help.

Although Asimov only attended a few meetings before leaving the project, he did write an essay on creativity that was never published anywhere else. In 2014, it was shared on the MIT Technology Review as: ​Isaac Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?”​ - A 1959 Essay by Isaac Asimov on Creativity.

A lot of the essay is on how to work creatively as a group, but Asimov had a very important point about how the best creative ideas usually come when an individual is working alone.

Of course, new ideas can seem obvious once someone else has come up with them, but the process of arriving at new ideas involves several crucial factors. Here's the basic formula Asimov gave for creativity:

• Proficiency

what is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected.

• Daring

The requirement to make that connection between item 1 and item 2 is "daring." A creative person who is:

willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us.

• Isolation

My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it.

The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display.

So what's the equation for a creative person who is capable of coming up with new ideas?

Proficiency in their field + ability to make a connection between 2 disparate ideas + a dash of daring + a bit of eccentricity + isolation = original ideas

Simple enough, right?

Do you struggle coming up with original ideas or with executing on your ideas?

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

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Quick Inspiration

• Listen: Lost at Sea - Rob Grant & Lana Del Rey (3:07 min)

• Read: ​For a More Creative Brain Follow These 5 Steps​ - James Clear (6 min)

• Watch: ​Creative thinking - how to get out of the box and generate ideas​ - Giovanni Corazza at TEDxRoma (13:38 min)

Deeper Inspiration

Atomic Habits by James Clear​

Little things done consistently over a long period of time make a big difference. (4.8 stars on Amazon, 4.4 stars on Goodreads)

Tom Cruise on Creativity

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #013 • 5 min. read

There's a riddle in the middle of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. It says:

What is always coming but never arrives?

(The answer is at the end of this post.)

Procrastination and its cousin, hesitation, are some of Resistance's greatest weapons. Anything we put off doing now is even less likely to get done tomorrow. Procrastination is pretty obvious: it's the putting off of doing what we know we need to do. Hesitation is related, but slightly different.

Hesitating might mean you don't follow the path that opens up in front of you. You don't explore it to find the treasure it may contain. You stubbornly stick to the plan, unwilling to see new possibilities. You don't follow that initial burst of inspiration. Hesitation can lead to procrastination, or worse, never trying.

I have a confession to make:

I'm a huge Tom Cruise fan.

I have been since I first saw the original Top Gun. I was too young to see it in theaters, but a few years later when it aired on network TV I recorded it on VHS tape. And yes, I paused during the commercials, for the ultimate at-home viewing experience.

Fast-forward over 30 years and I'm still a sucker for a Tom Cruise movie, and I've been looking forward to the latest M:I through its years of COVID-delayed release. When my wife and I arrived at the IMAX, an unexpected storm had beaten us there.

The sky fell out.

Trash cans blew across the parking lot of the nearby McAlister's Deli.

When the rain finally let up a bit and we ran inside, we found that the theater had lost power and all the projectors had reset. There was a long line of people getting refunds for their interrupted movies. Not a good sign.

We printed out our tickets and risked another power outage anyway. Thankfully the power stayed on for the rest of the evening.

(It was worth the wait. It's one of the top M:I films of the series and one of the best of Cruise's career. Once it gets going, it doesn't let up).

Now that I've seen it, I'm free to delve into interviews, trivia, and behind-the-scenes content without any fear of spoilers. That's how I came across the ​Light the Fuse podcast​, in which the hosts interview Cruise and M:I 7 director, Chris McQuarrie (McQ). And I'm glad I did, because they share some great insights into their creative process, as well as creativity in general.

Contrary to the way many movies are made, for Cruise and McQ, the script is just a starting point. The majority of the plot, action, and dialogue are there, but it doesn't mean that's what the final movie will end up being. There's a lot of rewriting and restructuring based on what happens on the set. Words on the page, when said by an actor, may take on a different context. The tone of a scene can change. A small detail that changes can have a ripple effect on many other scenes in the movie.

To some that would spell disaster. They would hesitate.

But Cruise and McQ aren't interested in filming their initial ideas. They want to make the best movie possible. So every rewrite, reshoot, and rabbit trail that arises from something unplanned, from something in the moment, becomes an opportunity to make the story better. It's all in service of the story.

That's what making the movie is about: telling the best story possible.

One of the worst things you can do as a creative is to hesitate. To refuse to explore new ideas and possibilities as they happen. Cruise and McQ don't hesitate. Whether it's jumping a motorcycle off the side of a mountain or rewriting the movie as they shoot it, they take every challenge they encounter and sift through it to get every last bit of gold they can.

Now, procrastination...

There's a phrase Sir Paul McCartney recalls his father telling him and his brother when they were younger and it was time to get at their chores. The advice McCartney applies to his creative work ties in perfectly with the riddle from Mission: Impossible. When he begins to create, he doesn't stop. He finishes the song before he leaves. John Higgs recounts Paul's process in his book, ​Love and Let Die​:

McCartney places great emphasis on starting and finishing work immediately, before you have had the chance to overanalyse or come up with an excuse not to do it. This is an attitude that he credits his father with instilling in him. Whenever Paul or his brother Mike would try to get out of a chore by saying they would do it tomorrow, their father would tell them ‘D.I.N. – do it now’. As he explains, ‘you get rid of the hesitation and the doubt, and you just steamroll through’. This approach paid dividends when he came to work with John Lennon. Every time they sat down to write a song they would finish it, and they never once came away from a writing session having failed to come up with something. “I’m all for that way of working,’ he has said. ‘Once John and I or I alone started a song, there was nowhere else to go; we had to finish it, and it was a great discipline. There’s something about doing it when you have the vision.’

These ideas about hesitation and procrastination that McCartney and Cruise share illustrate the importance of forward momentum. Push through the fear of the unknown.

Don't be afraid to experiment.

Start before you feel ready.

Explore options you aren't sure will work.

Finish your work before the moment passes.

So, what do you think the answer to the riddle is?

What is always coming but never arrives?

Tomorrow.

Don't put off that idea or that project. Get to work before the doubts and questions start to creep in. You don't have to have it all figured out to begin. The first draft doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't have to make sense yet. The facts and details don't have to be correct. You're just getting as much as you can out of your head, so it can live, so it can breathe.

Some writers call this a "vomit" draft. You're just throwing it all up on the page. You can dig through the muck and sort out the good from the bad later.

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

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Quick Inspiration

• Listen: When in Rome with Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie - Light the Fuse podcast (40 min)

• Read: Bluey teaches children and parents alike about how play supports creativity – and other life lessons - The Conversation (5 min)

• Watch: The Curse of Creativity - Jordan Peterson, YouTube video (6:27 min)

Deeper Inspiration

​Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull​

Creativity, Inc. is a manual for anyone who strives for originality. It is, at its heart, a book about creativity—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.” (4.7/5 stars on Amazon, 4.2 stars on Goodreads)

The Myth of One-size-fits-all Creativity

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #012 • 3.5 min. read

Don't let anyone tell you their way is the only way to create.

Some people are up at 5am, creating in the silence of the early morning, done before anyone else even wakes for the day. Some light a candle late at night, play the perfect playlist, and write every draft by hand. Neither way is right (or wrong). But if they tell you their way is the way, ignore them.

We all have our own best way of working and how we work best is as unique as the work we create.

If you don't know how you work best, then experiment. Find out what works for others and try it for yourself, but with zero pressure to use it if it doesn't feel right to you. Try creating in the morning, midday, in the evening, or late at night. Try it with music and without. It won't take long to figure out what works and what doesn't.

(And when in doubt, go for when you have the most energy).

Your creative routine should set you up to create. It should get you into the right frame of mind where ideas have the chance to come to life.

Don't get me wrong, it's still going to require work. We can't live in a marvelous state of flow every time we sit down to create. But your job is to create the most conducive environment for your creativity. If you work best listening to Hans Zimmer, great. If Japanese LoFi beats do the trick, go LoFi. If you need white noise, or coffee house din, or perfect silence, just figure out what works best. (And know that it might change). If the mood strikes you to jam out to the Beastie Boys, just go with it. You might be surprised what you create when you create the right environment.

Now, it's about to sound like I'm contradicting myself, but there is one non-negotiable thing you have to do if you want to be a prolific creator:

Follow a structure.

Because if you only create when you're inspired, then you won't create much. Trust me, I've tried writing a book only when the inspiration strikes. I've been writing that book for about 9 years...

It's an ecstatic experience when inspiration strikes like lightning and an idea is borne from above on a bolt of electricity. But it isn't an easily controlled, repeatable event.

So your job is to do the work.

Sit your butt in the seat and face the blank page.

Start digging.

Move some dirt around.

See what happens.

If inspiration strikes, wonderful.

If not, put in the work anyway.

There's a great quote from Jason Bagley, the Creative Director behind the iconic ​commercial​ that rejuvenated Old Spice a few years ago. He says,

Stop focusing on something you can’t control—the quality of ideas, and start focusing on what you can control—the quantity of ideas. Your job isn’t to come up with great ideas, it's to come up with tons of ideas. Even if they're all terrible. Because something magical happens when you focus on quantity instead of quality; the creative process becomes 10x more playful and fun. And in this state of prolific playfulness, you will accidentally come up with more and better ideas even though you weren’t trying to.

Do you have a perfect creative environment?

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

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Quick Inspiration

• Listen: ​Life and Death​ - Michael Giacchino, Lost: Season 1 (3m 41s)

• Read: ​Laziness and Discipline​ - Austin Kleon, blog post (2m 56s)

• Watch: ​Give Yourself Permission to Be Creative​ - Ethan Hawke, TED Talk (9m 07s)

Deeper Inspiration

​The Creative Act: A Way of Being - Rick Rubin​

I just finished reading this. It's a wonderfully short book for being 432 pages because it's arranged in a way that it can be read in pieces. It's got great bits of inspiration and reminders of the importance of creativity. Whether creativity is your full-time job or a hobby, this book will encourage you to keep creating and to view all of life through a creative lens. Most importantly, it will make you want to put it down and create something yourself. ​I rated it 4/5 on Goodreads​.

Navigating Burnout

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #011 • 2.5 min. read

I recently hit a bit of burnout. I quit posting on social media and I let this newsletter slide. I became a ghost online.

It was compounded by the fact I took a week off of work and I lost the structure of my normal daily routine.

But I have to admit...

...it was glorious.

The pressure to create—to maintain an online presence—is immense. Post, comment, like, feed the algorithm or risk falling into the abyss of obscurity. But that pressure is stressful, especially if you're an introvert like me. Sure, being active online doesn't require as much energy as mingling with acquaintances and strangers in person, but it's still draining.

I get refilled from solitude and deep personal relationships. Shallow and trivial drain me. And let's face it, a lot of social media is both.

So taking a break was wonderful because it meant I wasn't being drained, and it also gave me a chance to refill.

My family went to the Memphis Botanic Garden. We bought flowers and spruced up our back porch. I worked outside a lot, read fiction, got back to work on the book I'm writing, and finished up the first journal I've ever completely filled in my life.

See, the burnout wasn't complete. It didn't cripple everything like a deep depression, keeping my in bed all day. It didn't affect every aspect of my life. I just had to pause the things that were draining me and find new ways to breathe life into my creativity.

Another thing I feel pressured to do is make this newsletter around 1,000 words long each week. I'm not sure why, no one asked me for 1,000 words. I guess I think it just needs to seem more substantial than a short social media post. That's part of the reason I've missed two weeks.

But honestly, if a newsletter I subscribe to is too long, I don't read it. I appreciate short, quick reads. And I value your time as much as I value my own. So going forward, this newsletter will be shorter. I'll aim to only take a couple minutes of your time. If there's a story that takes too long to read, I'll save it for the online version and just link to it here.

I still haven't started posting regularly on LinkedIn again, but ol' Zuckerberg lured me in with Threads. I've been dipping my toes in the waters. It feels familiar, but also fresh. I like it a lot better than Mastodon, Bluesky, or T2. If you're on Threads, say hi! ​https://www.threads.net/@travishinkle ​(no guarantees I'll stay active there, but we'll see!)

So what's the cure for burnout?

For me, it's pressing pause, it's keeping varied interests, and realizing when I'm starting to fill my plate too full.

What about you? How do you fight burnout?

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Take the First Step

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #010 • 5 min. read

There's nothing like finishing a project. You get an immense sense of satisfaction upon seeing what all the hours and effort you've poured into something have brought forth. But that's at the end of a project. It takes a lot of work to get to the end. In fact, the hardest part of getting to the end might be starting.

Depending on the scope of your project, it can be intimidating to even think about the finished project before you even start. That's our old friend (foe), Resistance, whispering, "that looks like a lot of work. Are you sure you can handle it?"

Even relatively small projects can carry that weight of apprehension. Resistance doesn't discriminate. It will find ways to freeze us in our tracks before we take a single step.

It happens for me with this email.

I don't always know what I'm going to write about. I know I've made you a promise to send out something valuable every Saturday, and I take that promise seriously. But sometimes I sit down to write this and I don't know what I'm going to say. And if I stop there, Resistance will turn to fear. Fear that I don't have anything valuable to say. Fear that this email will be a waste of your time. Fear that you'll unsubscribe.

But there's a secret to getting past Resistance and fear:

Starting.

It's really that simple.

I don't have to figure out all 700-1,000 words before I write the first sentence. I just have to start.

And the act of starting pushes Resistance aside and starts moving me forward.

Starting is more than half the battle.

Sure, there will be moments in the middle where you get lost and don't know which way to go. And there are times towards the end when you start to wonder if it all makes sense, and there's a fear of setting your creation free into the wild world. But those aren't problems to worry about at the start.

At the start, we're only worried about the first step.

Not even the second.

The beginning is all about building momentum.

It's the same for a post on social media, an email, or a book. The process for each has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

For a drawing, it could be a quick pencil sketch, a pen and ink drawing, or a highly detailed oil on canvas. The bigger the project, the bigger the Resistance can be, but they all start with starting.

Pick up the pencil, the pen, the brush, the chisel. Sit down at the keyboard, the piano, the easel. Whatever you're working on, make a mark. Make a line. Write a word. Play a note. You're not committed to the whole project yet, you're just convincing your mind that your body will take care of this, one step at a time.

Newton's First Law of Motion states that a body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts on it, and a body in motion at a constant velocity will remain in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force.

Your willpower is the outside force.

All you need is one single, defiant act in the face of Resistance.

And once you're in motion, it's much easier to keep going.

Starting can be the hardest part.

Here's what Steven Pressfield says about fear in his book (that I highly recommend), ​The War of Art​:

Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates the strength of Resistance. Therefore, the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul.

In addition to this email every week, I've been struggling a lot with writing lately. From LinkedIn posts to making progress on two different books I'm writing, I keep finding excuses not to get started every day.

This week, I shared on LinkedIn it took me 40 years to journal consistently. Now I've finally made it a habit. (You can read that post ​here​ if you wish).

The summary is this: the pages on the left are every journal entry from February 2006–December 2022. The pages on the right are from January 1, 2023–June 13, 2023.

I've written in this journal more in the last six months than I did in the entire previous sixteen years!

The visual of seeing the pages on the right was proof to me of how important it is to:

1. Commit to showing up every day

2. Start

Those two acts is all it takes to finish a project when you break it down to its simplest form.

Show up today. Repeat.

Over time, you build the sentences, the paragraphs, the pages, the chapters, until finally all the pages are full, and the book is written.

I'm "currently" writing two books, a non-fiction book on creativity and AI that I started at the beginning of 2023 (and which got way too big in my head, so I'm rethinking it entirely) and a fiction book (MG fantasy) that I started writing as a screenplay about nine years ago.

I started on both of them. But then I stopped. And the longer they have sat dormant (sure, changing jobs, moving houses, and all of life's busyness are good excuses), the harder it is to start again. In fact, it might even be harder to restart than it was to start in the first place.

But those pages on the right side of my journal...they give me hope. They inspire me that I don't have to write the whole book. And my ​plotter​ heart doesn't have to have the end figured out, or know every twist and turn, or even settle on the character's names yet.

All I have to do is write a few words each day.

Those words will turn into sentences.

Those sentences will turn into paragraphs.

Those paragraphs will turn into pages.

Those pages will turn into chapters.

And those chapters will make a book.

First things first:

Start.

As one of the Victorian age's finest poets, ​Christina Rossetti​, said:

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished?

Yes; work never begun.

Here's a list of great books that I've found inspiring in my creative journey. (A word of warning, though: don't let reading others' thoughts on creativity take the place of actually doing the work yourself).

• ​The War of Art​ by Steven Pressfield

• ​Show Your Work​ by Austin Kleon

• ​Steal Like an Artist​ by Austin Kleon

• ​Keep Going​ by Austin Kleon

• ​The Creative Act: A Way of Being​ by Rick Rubin

• ​The Artist’s Way​ by Julia Cameron

What are you avoiding starting or restarting right now? Reply to this dispatch and let me know. I love hearing from those of you who have replied to previous dispatches. Thank you for sharing your creative journey with me. We're not as alone as we sometimes think we are.

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Reinvention or ADD?

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #009 • 6 min read

I've got creative ADD.

Its symptoms are similar to how most people would describe classic ADD but on a longer timeframe.

I don't have trouble focusing on a single task, organizing, planning, or even executing on projects and tasks. But I do get bored after awhile. And I'm back and forth on whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

See, all the hustle bros and solopreneurs will tell you that the key to being successful online is to choose a niche (and choose it wisely!). Narrow your focus and go deep. Become the expert in your niche. Oh, and choose something you love and could talk about for 30+ minutes without notice. Because you'll be talking about it a lot as you build your platform/audience/community.

Niche, niche, niche.

I've either got too many niches or too broad a niche. Creativity is not a niche. But I love a million things about it and under its umbrella.

Paintings, movies, design, books, music, problem-solving, poetry, theatre, screenwriting, illustrations, video games, etc.

So I either have to go "too broad" or I have to reinvent myself when I get board of my current niche.

When the going gets boring, the bored get going

Surely I'm not the only creative out there who feels a constant pull towards a new adventure.

I started as many kids do, with crayons, a pencil, LEGO ​bricks​...

I stuck with the pencil and drawing became my hobby. I got pretty good at it.

Over the years I've picked up musical instruments from the recorder (Hot Cross Buns, anyone?) to the guitar, dabbled with the drums and keyboard. I even bought a violin off of eBay once! The only one I could pick up and not embarrass myself with today is the acoustic guitar. Most songs only need 3 or 4 chords anyway. ;)

I've painted, used chalks, stippled with pens and markers, and jumped at the chance to draw with a Wacom tablet in Photoshop when they came out, and then the Apple Pencil on an iPad Pro. I've participated in Inktober and various other illustration challenges.

I have photos of me as a kid holding old 35mm film cameras of my dad's. I saw him taking photos so I wanted to take photos, too. I bought a digital Sony in the early 2000's and started wedding photography as a side hustle. Then I bought a mid-range Nikon DSLR, then a semi-pro Nikon. Weddings and engagements, senior portraits, and family photos kept my wife and me busy for a few years.

Before I could drive, I started interning at a small radio station that I got to tour on a field trip. I ended up working there for years! It was my first real job and further kindled my love for music. (They still call me Intern Boy).

That led to me ditching my plan of getting a degree in graphic design. Instead, I moved to Florida to attend Full Sail University for Audio Engineering. (I never got great at playing any instruments, but I was really good at making musicians and singers sound their best). That led to interning at a recording studio in Nashville right after I graduated, and a lot of mixing for live bands over the years.

I've worked a lot of non-creative day jobs over the years, but always kept some kind of creative hustle on the side. Sometimes for money, sometimes for enjoyment.

After moving to Memphis in 2014, I ended up working in the Creative Department for a large church. I did everything from communications, design, social media, planning services, mixing sound, editing video, to leading the whole team as the Creative Director. After many years, that was my first full-time creative job. While I was there, I wrote video scripts, devotions, book content, social posts, and more and it rekindled a love for the written word. (I'd also been working on a few story ideas, blogs, etc. over the years).

Jump from working for the church to working in marketing as a content marketer. Now I do a lot of writing.

And I'm still hustling on the side. From writing a book to writing this newsletter. From graphic design to creating images with AI in Midjourney. Sometimes I get too many irons in the fire and have to press pause on one or two projects, but it's hard to pick just one thing!

And once I've set something down for awhile, I get the itch to pick it back up. Don't tell my wife, but I might have been researching the latest mirrorless digital cameras...

The point is, creativity is a journey.

Maybe it's a straight path for some of you. You have a great talent, a passion and drive for it, and it is your singular focus. You go from point A to point B. A simple journey.

For others, maybe you're like me, and you've been all over the place, dabbling in different creative fields. You go from point A to point B to point E, back to point D, jump to point M, and who knows where else.

I say, keep dabbling. Get your hands dirty. Try something new. Push yourself to learn, to grow.

Make the journey interesting.

Because here's the amazing thing that happens when you combine the various creative disciplines you've played with:

They start to influence and build off each other.

My interest in music influences my writing and drawing. My drawing and love for illustration influences my design style. Photography influences illustration and design and vice versa.

If nothing else, when you find something that's hard to master, it gives you an appreciation for those who have devoted their time and effort to mastering it.

We are all given creative gifts. Things that come easier to us than others. We get a head start on the road to mastery, but it still takes practice (lots of practice) to get really good. But I firmly believe that we all have the potential to get good at something, and often times more than one thing.

If you've tried something "creative" and declared that you are, in fact, not a creative... try again. Try something else. Give it some time. All that really matters is whether or not you enjoy it.

There are enough different creative pursuits to fill a lifetime and then some. The ones you don't enjoy? Marie Kondo those suckers and try something else.

What's your creative journey look like?

• Stuck with one thing

• Tried it all and I'm back for more

• I'm not creative (you need to start something today)

Reply and let me know what your creative interests are, or why you gave up on them.

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

The world is not in your books and maps. It's out there.

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #008 • 5 min read

When's the last time you went outside for no other reason than to be outside?

No phone, no book, no planned activity. Just you, taking in nature, studying the twisting, reaching branches of trees, feeling the wind against your face, listening to the birds twitter and sing, watching the squirrels leap about, closing your eyes and lifting your head to the sun the feel its warmth...

If you can't remember the last time you did that, do it now. Quit reading this and go.

You have my permission.

I'll wait.

...

If you read ​last week's dispatch​, you know the special place The Lord of the Rings holds in my heart. There's a line from the movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, that isn't in any of the books. (If you've spent any time on TikTok or Instagram Reels, you've probably heard it).

Gandalf says to Bilbo:

The world is not in your books and maps. It's out there.

I love that line, but I also have a problem with it.

First, the reason I have a problem with it:

I believe worlds can be created within books. Within movies. Within songs. Within poetry. Art is a creative medium and its canvas is the human imagination. If we cannot imagine something that we've never seen, then where do new things come from?

Worlds can exist within books and maps.

Just look at Middle Earth itself! Tolkien created an entire world, full of history and language, myth and magic, mountains and Shire, hobbits and elves and dwarves and talking trees. In a way, the line seems to contradict the very thing Tolkien created. But before I get too worked up....

That brings us to why I also love the line:

I love it because I understand the need to get out into the real world.

You could say the line from the movie is an adaptation and/or conglomeration of several different passages from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In fact, there is a passage in The Hobbit that could be summarized with that line of dialogue from Gandalf to Bilbo.

And it's hard to convey internal struggle in a movie, so I get why the writers, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, chose to dramatize this internal scene of Bilbo's as a dialogue:

As [the dwarves] sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick. He looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns. Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water a flame leapt up—probably somebody lighting a wood-fire—and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames. He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill, again.

Here's what I think Tolkien might have been aiming to convey:

Books and maps tell about the world. They can imagine the world beyond our door (or one that does not exist), yet they are still but a shadow of the real thing.

And I think we forget how much we need the real thing.

We have more than books and maps today. We have 4K HD TVs, WiFi, VR, and smartphones. We can travel to distant places, living vicariously through someone else's travel vlog, all from the air conditioned comfort of our own couch.

[Scroll]

Italy

[Scroll]

France

[Scroll]

New Zealand

[Scroll]

Dubai

We live in our houses, in our cars, in our offices, in our own heads. All the while, the world awaits us outside.

Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains,

Books and maps and Instagram Reels should awaken in us a desire to go out. To be discontent with the experiences of others. To put down our phones and take in the things that have existed far longer than any of us. Great mountains. Vast oceans. Giant trees. Fields and clouds and flowers and animals.

Because once we're out there, nature will awaken something within us.

Living inside, we've fallen asleep.

Yet we can't sleep, we can't create, we can't think.

We're stressed and anxious and depressed.

And the endless scroll of social media or infinite streaming options won't fix it.

I realize this is a newsletter about creativity, but we're whole people, and when one facet of the body is sick, the whole body is sick.

Are you creatively stuck?

It might have nothing to do with what you're doing creatively and more to do with your physical environment.

Maybe you need to...

hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves,

If I stay indoors too long my creativity gets stifled. Just going into the backyard inspires me.

When I get my hands in the dirt, I feel centered and grounded.

I’m not a gardener, but I get the sense that if all I had to do is care for plants and till soil, I could be content.

and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

The world awaits. Adventure is calling to you. But you have to go after it. You have to quit looking out the window, load your pack, grab your sword, and go out the door. It's your choice.

and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames.

You can choose to stay inside. Look away from the window and pick your phone back up. Allow images of mountains to substitute for real mountains.

He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill, again.

Will you choose comfort and stay in, or will you step out and find you've reawakened something inside?

Resistance would prefer you just keep scrolling.

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

You Need a Sam Gamgee

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #007 • 4 min read

Confession: this post should have been published last week. But I didn’t finish writing it in time. There were a lot of reasons for not getting it done, but the truth is:

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a creative, Resistance will still fight you. I’ve been creating since I could hold a crayon or a pencil. I have 35-year-old notebooks filled with artwork and short stories. But I still face Resistance on a daily—if not hourly—basis.

There is no defeating it once and for all. It’s a fight you will wage over and over and over again. Consider it part of the creative process.

Sometimes starting will feel like the hardest part. Sometimes it’s the middle that weighs you down. And other times it’s that final stretch as you near the finish line when Resistance extends a foot into your path, tripping you up just so it can watch you tumble into a heap while it crunches on avocado toast.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about collaboration, and how Resistance keeps us from sharing our ideas for fear they might be bad.

(Hint: a lot of them are)

Although there can be fear surrounding collaboration, there is also safety to be found. We might wish for the relative safety of solitude to avoid the fear of sharing our ideas, but that can be a mistake.

When we embark on solo creative endeavors, the journey can be lonely and can make us susceptible to giving up, sometimes before we even get started.

There are times when it’s important to close ourselves off and get to work. We need times of uninterrupted focus—deep work, to borrow the title of Cal Newport’s book. But every so often we need to connect, we need the camaraderie that’s inherent to collaboration.

The same comfort that can be found in a collaboration can also be found by merely sharing your struggles with another creative.

You don’t have to collaborate to share one another’s burden, but you do have to be willing to be vulnerable.

You have to be willing to actually share what you’re struggling with.

Can’t get motivated? Share that.

Stuck in the middle? Share that.

Unable to call the project done? Share.

Have a fear of hitting publish? Share.

You get the idea.

If you can share your creative struggles and your fight against Resistance, you’ll find you aren’t as alone as you thought. Because we all experience it.

You are not the only one who has ever faced Resistance.

My favorite book* is The Lord of the Rings.

It’s an epic tale that can be boiled down to a very simple summary:

Frodo must destroy the Ring of Power before it destroys him, or falls back into the hands of Sauron.

At the risk of spoiling the end of a 68 year old story…

SPOILER ALERT

…Frodo does accomplish his mission.

(Although, even at the end, at the edge of the fires of Mt. Doom, Frodo’s greed for the ring would have spelled defeat were it not for Gollum’s deeper desire for the ring.)

But he never could have done it alone. Gandalf died. The Fellowship was broken. He tried to leave Sam behind. Gollum tried to take the ring back. He was almost killed be a giant spider. And the Ring almost lulled him into surrender a number of times.

Sam was his constant companion. He couldn’t carry the burden of the Ring, but he could carry his friend. He could push him to the end. Protect him. Urge him on.

And though the rest of the Fellowship was split, they did their part to defeat the army of Mordor and help Frodo in ways unseen and unknown to him.

We all need a Sam. We need a Fellowship.

Find someone who can share in your struggles even if they aren’t sharing in your project.

When Resistance shows up, you’ll need a friend to urge you on in your mission.

If you’ve never read The Lord of the Rings, what are you waiting for? Get a copy now!

*Nerd side-note: Yes, it’s usually viewed as a trilogy, but Tolkien only published it as three separate books at the insistence of his publisher. He meant it to be one epic piece.

When the publisher wouldn’t go for that, he aimed to split it into six parts (each published book still contains a Book 1 and a Book 2). Still a no. (Post-WWII paper supplies and costs and all that.)

So it was released as a trilogy. But the best way to read it is as one giant story. I really like this version. Also, you don’t have to read The Hobbit for LotR to make sense, but it will help deepen the story. I like this pocket edition of The Hobbit.

Do you have someone to share your creative struggles with?

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox (almost) every Saturday morning.

Judge me by how good my good ideas are, not how bad my bad ideas are

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #006 • 4.5 min read

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Whoever said there's no such thing as a bad idea was dead wrong.

Some ideas are terrible.

If you really think about it, the life of a successful creative, in its simplest form, is the courage to get through enough bad ideas that you get to the good ones. And you work towards the occasional great idea.

How many bad ideas have you had? Too many to count? Me too.

A few years ago, I was the Creative Director for a local church. It was my team's job to plan, create, and execute all the creative ideas for weekend services, special events, and more. From design to music, video to lighting, stage props and special elements, we were tasked with creating at least 52 unique experiences a year, not to mention social, email lists, a website, print materials, etc.

When it came time for ideas, we usually gathered near a whiteboard, in our skinny jeans, armed with plenty of caffeine, MacBooks, and WiFi.

The way I viewed it, it wasn't my job to come up with all the ideas. It was my job to inspire my team to come up with their best ideas.

And most of the time that involved shouting out some ridiculous ideas.

But it all went on the white board.

It almost never failed, that as we went on, the ideas got better and better. But the secret that not many people talk about is that some of the "bad" ideas turn into good ideas. An idea, good or bad, can cause a chain reaction of creativity. It does two things:

1. It gets the ideation process started.

2. It lets everyone else know it's okay to share ideas that aren't fully formed.

1. Getting the ideation process started

Rarely does anyone want to be the first to offer up a bad idea. Open my mouth and embarrass myself? No thanks.

As the leader, sometimes I gave a few bad ideas to get us started. It set the bar low, and let the team know, if it's okay to share an idea like that, then maybe my idea isn't that bad!

One of Resistance's biggest weapons is fear.

Fear of what others will think.
Fear of what they will say.
Fear of losing your credibility.
Fear of not having the best idea.
Fear of not having your idea chosen.
Etc, etc, etc.

But that fear is combated with motion. Resistance wants us frozen in fear. Once we start moving, its hold on us loosens.

Pretty soon the whiteboard is full of ideas. Then we get to refine some, eliminate others, combine a few, and put some distance between us and fear.

2. It's okay to share ideas that aren't fully formed

Rarely do we have the perfect idea and answer sitting in our head, just waiting to be executed.

How many first drafts are exactly what gets published? I don't actually have the answer for that, but I have to imagine it's close to 0%. And the few that might have made it through definitely aren't as good as they could have been with some editing, rewriting, and polishing.

An idea might only be a spark, a feeling, a hunch.

It can take work to get to a fully formed idea that's ready to execute. Don't be afraid to do the work, but don't be afraid to start with the hint of an idea either.

If you're collaborating—or even working alone—everyone needs to know it's okay to share something you haven't fully thought out. Say it. Write it down. Add it to the pool of ideas. You never know, it just might be the one that has wings, or it might help influence another idea.

That's the other thing about bad ideas: they might indeed be a bad idea, but they might lead to a great one.

The creative process is long and winding. Sometimes a bad idea causes you to explore a path that you would have otherwise walked right by. And there might be gold at the end of that path.

Don't miss the gold that might be hidden at the end of a bad idea. Tease it out. Explore a little. Creativity is not an efficient process, you have to take the time to explore ideas.

---

Last year, I saw a commercial for Hulu+ that resonated deeply. So deeply, that I had to make a carousel of it for LinkedIn. It's about brainstorming and bad ideas. It's a much shorter version of this newsletter.

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Along those same lines, I ran across an Instagram Reel of Matt Damon talking about collaboration and the creative process. He shared a simple, yet profound line about collaboration. But the line wasn't his own. It came from his buddy and long-time collaborator, Ben Affleck:

Judge me by how good my good ideas are, not how bad my bad ideas are.

It's what Affleck said to him when they set out to write the screenplay for Good Will Hunting. What a great way to view collaboration! Great collaboration requires trust. It requires a safe space, where you can share all your ideas, good and bad.

And it's often the case that we have to get a lot of bad ideas out before we get to the good stuff.

Whether you're working alone or collaborating, don't be afraid of bad ideas.

Embrace them.

Sometimes they end up being gold.

Sometimes they stay bad ideas, but you have to dig through them and sift them out to get to the gold.

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Don’t Break the Chain

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #005 • 4.75 min read

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Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to not break the chain.

I've been a bit of a productivity nerd almost as long as I've been a creative. I've tried every method out there: Pomodoro, time blocking, the Eisenhower Principle, sprints, Kanban, to-do lists, to-do apps, time tracking apps, spreadsheets, et al.

I've used task and project management apps like: Basecamp, Asana, Monday, Clickup, Trello. (My favorite is Asana).

They all have their pros and cons, and some worked better for me than others (while I've talked to many people who prefer a different method or app than me).

But this year, I wanted to try something different.

I wanted to simplify the process.

Because sometimes maintaining the system takes as much time as the work itself. And doesn't that defeat the purpose?

Sidenote: when I talk about productivity, I don't mean it in the assembly line, "get as many widgets out the door as quickly as possible" way. I mean to use it as a method of making the best use of my time when working towards making progress on my goals and projects. I want to track what I have to do, when it needs to be done, and make sure I'm spending my time on the most important tasks.

Maybe you've heard the story about the time Brad Isaac asked Jerry Seinfeld how to be a better comedian. Seinfeld's answer was simple:

“The way to be a better comic is to create better jokes. The way to create better jokes is to write every day.

When Seinfeld was a young comedian, he committed to writing one joke a day.

Not an entire routine or even a whole monologue. Just one funny line.

He had a big 12-month wall calendar in his apartment. Every time he wrote a joke, he put a red ❌ on that date. Just one joke.

Before long he had a growing chain of red ❌’s on the calendar—a visual reminder of the work he put in day after day. Seinfeld shared that advice with Brad: Buy a big 12-month wall calendar and put a big red ❌ over every day you write. Once you start to see the chain form, you won’t want to break it.

Your only job is to not break the chain.

I like simple.

So I created my own habit tracker in a Baron Fig dotted grid notebook (Basically a hand-drawn version of the Baron Fig/James Clear Habit Journal). Columns are the days of the month, rows are the habits.

Every day I try to put an X in the square for each habit I'm tracking.

I’ve tracked my habits for 4 full months now and I’ve learned that that big ol’ ❌ is powerful. Seinfeld was onto something. It’s so simple, it works. My homemade habit tracker has more than just one habit to track. In fact, I've got 14 habits for May. And to be honest, I’ve broken several of the chains each month. But I’ve improved month over month. I’ve become more consistent. And that's the goal, not perfection, but consistency over time.

I'm playing the long game (the Infinite Game as Simon Sinek puts it). It works.

It plays along perfectly with what James Clear says in his book, Atomic Habits:

All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.

Every day I commit to taking one small action toward a bigger habit I want to develop.

What does this have to do with creativity?

Not all 14 of my habits are related to creativity (at least not directly). But I guarantee you, that whatever non-creative habits you track and grow, the creative ones work the same way.

You don't lose 10 pounds in a single day. You eat less calories than you need every day and exercise consistently, and over time you lose 10 pounds.

In the same way:

You don't write a book all at once. You write it over the words and pages and chapters it takes to write a complete book. So don't just write your goal down: write a book. Make it happen. Write a chapter a day. 1,000 words a day. 5 minutes a day. Whatever metric you want to use. And then track it. Mark the ❌ every day you complete it. Watch that chain grow and do your best not to break it. Before you know it, you will have written a book. And not only that, you won't write only when you feel inspired, you will have built the habit of writing every day.

If you’re really tired tomorrow and don’t feel like writing, take five minutes and do it anyway.

Seriously.

Build the habit.

Get the sketchpad out, pick up the guitar, build your email list, post on LinkedIn, splash some paint across the canvas. Spend a few minutes engaged in your craft. Then do it again the next day. And the next.

I mean it.

I guarantee, this tiny habit will gain momentum and expand. You’ll soon discover there is time to devote to your craft on a daily basis.

If you really want to lock this practice in, buy a 12-month wall calendar like Seinfeld did. Or a notebook. Either way, put an ❌ over each day you showed up and did the work.

And then don’t break the chain!

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Dreaming of the Crash

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #004 • 5 min read

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Last week I wrote about how the idea for Cubism grew out of the popular fascination of a fourth spatial dimension, written about by French mathematician Henri Poincaré, in his book, Science and Hypothesis. The idea came from science, not art. And yet it revolutionized the art world.

While last week's dispatch focused on Picasso and how he incorporated the idea of a fourth dimension in a visual way, I briefly mentioned how H. G. Wells imagined the fourth dimension not as space, but as time in his book, The Time Machine.

And if anyone likes to explore the idea of time and play with the fabric of what we know as reality, it's filmmaker Christopher Nolan.

Nolan might be my favorite filmmaker of all time—definitely in my Top 5—so naturally his films top my list.

From Memento to The Prestige, Dark Knight to Dunkirk, and from Inception to Interstellar, the themes of time, reality, and sacrifice all strike a chord with me.

Nolan is a genius.

But for all his genius, he doesn't really work alone.

What would his movies be without the moving soundscapes created by long-time collaborator Hans Zimmer? The music in Nolan's films is as much a part of the story as any of the characters.

Here's the order in which I imagine Nolan's films are created, based on articles and interviews I've seen:

1. Concept or idea for a story

2. Mull the idea over for sometime

3. Begin writing the screenplay (sometimes solo, sometimes with his brother and frequent collaborator, Jonathan Nolan)

4. Make the film

5. Work with the composer to score the film

And for a writer/director, that is the usual order of the process.

But not for Interstellar.

I’ll be honest, I thought all of Nolan's movies were based on original ideas and screenplays that he wrote from scratch.

But Interstellar began its life as a Steven Spielberg project, penned by none other than Nolan's brother, Jonathan.

Had Spielberg made his movie, we wouldn't have the epic, yet intimate family drama of time and space that we have today. Spielberg's version would have been quite different.

When Spielberg's company, DreamWorks, moved from Paramount to Disney, a new director had to be found. Jonathan reached out to his brother, Christopher.

Not only was this not a 100% original Nolan idea, if it weren't for his composer buddy, Zimmer, he might not have even finished making the film. It certainly would have been missing its heart.

As Nolan wondered where to take the story (and what kind of film he would ultimately make), he had a conversation with Zimmer one evening at a party, telling Hans,

I have this idea. If I were to send you a letter with a story ... it's about a movie, but I'm not going to tell you what the movie's about, nor will the story in the letter tell you what the movie is about ... will you give me one day and write whatever comes to you?

Zimmer agreed to the challenge and later received the note, which he said,

was very personal, and the story itself was about a father and a son and the relationship, or what it means to be a parent. I mean, there's a line in it that once your child is born, you never look at yourself through your own eyes. You always look at yourself through your child's eyes.

And for Zimmer, that concept pushed him to consider his relationship with his own son, which helped him to compose what he called, "a fragile, tiny little piece."

So Zimmer invited Nolan to come in and listen to the piece.

So I play it to him without looking at him. [He was sitting on the couch behind me,] so I was not facing him, and I got to the end of it and I said, ‘So what do you think?’ And he’s just leaning back and goes, ‘Hmm, suppose I better make the movie.’ And I’m going, ‘What is the movie?’

Then Nolan fully explained the lofty, intense sci-fi epic of a plot and Zimmer became skeptical of his own work.

Stop, stop. Hang on. You're talking about this thing of epic proportions, and I've given you this tiny, tiny little fragile thing.

But that tiny thing proved to be more than enough for Nolan. He said:

Now I know where the heart of the story is.

Zimmer convinced him to make the film without even knowing what kind of movie it was.

While it's no surprise how important to the final film Zimmer's music is, the usual process of scoring a film was completely upended. Generally, composers are creating their music off of already filmed material, with editors sometimes even cutting to temp music in a way that limits the creative freedom of a composer.

Not only was Zimmer's process upended, but Nolan found the heart of his film in a piece of music that was written without any idea of the final product.

If you only look within your own niche for ideas and inspiration, you’re building shallow sand castles without ever digging deep enough to find the treasure buried a few more inches below the surface.

If you’re a writer, don't just read other books to find inspiration.
Look to music, film, and paintings.

If you’re a musician, don't just listen to other music to find inspiration.
Read novels, go to the museum, take long walks in nature.

If you’re a painter, don't just study other paintings to find inspiration.
Read poetry, study sculpture, and look at comic books.

If you're a designer, don't just doomscroll Dribble to find inspiration.
Study architecture, sketch freehand, and pore over maps.

Get outside of your own field.

Inspiration for original ideas are hidden under the sand where you play.

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Freedom in Structure

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #003 • 4 min read

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I'm a big believer in structure and rules.

That might sound antithetical to the life of a creative. Shouldn't we demand freedom and spontaneity? Who can predict the precise moment the muses will smile upon us, open the floodgates of creativity and allow them to wash over us? (If you believe in muses, that is).

Don't rules and structure stifle the creative process?

Well, yes and no.

See, too much freedom can be a bad thing.

We want unlimited creative license, but then we crumble under the weight of decision fatigue, unable to decide which direction to take a project.

Too much freedom can be a form of Resistance.

And then there are rules.

I hear you, I hear you...

Nobody puts Baby in a corner!

We're creative rebels. The hairs on our neck rise up at the thought of someone else telling us how to do something, right? Let us be unique. Let us do it our own way.

Tell that to  Picasso .

Because he did... after he did it the traditional way.

He learned all the proper classical rules for composition, color theory, and technique... then he broke them all with Cubism.

Begin Rabbit Trail #1 - Ideas from disparate fields of interest

The idea for Cubism grew out of the popular fascination at the time with the idea of a fourth spatial dimension, written about by French mathematician  Henri Poincaré , in his book,  Science and Hypothesis . (This is also the book that inspired Albert Einstein's  annus mirabilis papers , which included his  theory of special relativity ).

Picasso learned about the book indirectly through  Maurice Princet , an insurance actuary who explained the new geometry to Picasso and his friends in Paris.

At the time there were a considerable number of people who thought the fourth dimension might be the home of spirits. Others conceived of it as an “astral plane” where you can see all sides of an object at once. Novelist H. G. Wells even caused a sensation with his book  The Time Machine , where the fourth dimension was not space, but time.

Although Einstein was intrigued by the idea of a fourth dimension, Picasso actually incorporated it into his own creations before the famous physicist. Arthur I. Miller wrote about all of it in his book,  Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty That Causes Havoc .

In the book, he discusses in great detail the history of a single painting,  Les Demoiselles d’Avignon —completed and first exhibited in 1907. In its final form, “the painting represents five prostitutes in a bordello. Although in close proximity, they do not interact with each other, only with the viewer—the client.”

The “plot” of the painting is the increasing geometrization of the figures as one goes from left to right, ending up with a four-dimensional view of the squatting prostitute.

In striking contrast to Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2  (1912) where the figures represent successive points in time, seen as coexisting in the fourth dimension, Picasso’s painting culminates with a superimposed set of three-dimensional projections of an object in four spatial dimensions. The viewer is seeing the object simultaneously from (a sampling of) all possible perspectives rather than from only one as in classical painting.

(I'm going somewhere with this, but its conclusion is an email in and of itself. See Rabbit Trail #2, next week!)

End Rabbit Trail #1

Picasso created an entirely new art movement, but without his classical training, he wouldn't have had the visual vocabulary necessary to reinvent perspective.

So... rules and structure.

When it comes to creativity and art, they give us a framework, an understanding of how things work, and of how they can be broken. After all, true art doesn't lie in the rules or structure of things, but in the inward significance of what is represented. What meaning or emotion is communicated?

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance; for this, and not the external mannerism and detail, is true art.”

— Aristotle

Yet rules and structure play their role, but in the execution of art, and in the creative process.

Our minds like routine.

We tend to default to our habits.

So why not build structures into our lives that foster a creative atmosphere?

If we sit down at the same time every day to create, our bodies will learn to create at that time.

If we build rules and structures to protect our creative time, will we not be more creative?

Put the phone in airplane mode.

Close the door.

Eliminate distractions.

Put on music that inspires.

Have some coffee.

Or tea.

Or water.

Light a candle.

And get to work.

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. Do you use structure to get creative work done? How so?

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

The Creative Act of Building in Public

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #002 • 5 min read

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Building something in public can be scary. If you fail, you fail in front of everyone who's watching. It's safer to create in your basement. Or your work shed. A closet maybe. Or best of all, a remote cabin in the woods.

It's safer to work in secret, where only you can see the warts, bruises, and imperfections of the art you're creating.

But in many ways it's also riskier to work in secret.

Working in secret, you're only accountable to yourself. You don't know if the work you're creating will be received well or not. You won't know until you finally ship it and wait for the opinions to start rolling in.

That's where the benefits of building in public come in. Building in public forces you to be accountable. You've made a promise. You waved your hand, got everyone's attention, and said, "hey, I'm doing this thing!"

That gives you motivation to create now instead of putting it off for "a better day," when you might feel more inspired.

You can get feedback and make adjustments as you go.

And you can grow while you create.

Starting a newsletter is a perfect example. (As are a blog, a podcast, building a side hustle, or even writing a book).

Last week I posted on LinkedIn that I had gone from 0 to 10 subscribers as I prepared to send my first dispatch of this newsletter. Those first 10 subscribers came from adding links and CTAs to my LinkedIn profile and adding a brief CTA to the end (and comments) of a few of my posts.

Little actions that created some momentum and gave me some accountability.

Now that I had subscribers, I had to write something.

In the Welcome email that you get when you confirm your subscription to The Creative Rebellion, I talk about how to beat Resistance. It takes action.

And that's what gaining a few subscribers did: it spurred me to take more action.

And that action created even more action. Then I posted about the action I was taking, and that led to 14 more new subscribers before the first dispatch went out on Saturday morning. So Dispatch #001 went out to 24 fellow creative rebels.

Action building upon itself with more action is momentum.

And momentum creates progress.

It gets us from point A to point B.

And as creatives, that's what we all want, right?

We want to create. We want to find the inspiration to start. To make progress. To finish.

So how do we determine points A and B?

Point A is the start. We have to begin. Write the first word, draw the first line, paint the first stroke, play the first note. We have to take the first step.

Finishing looks different for each of us, but there's a quote I've heard said several different ways, that, if the Internet is to be trusted, goes back to Leonardo Da Vinci:

"Art is never finished, only abandoned."

Variations of this quote have been attributed to Paul Valéry, Oscar Wilde, David Fincher, and George Lucas, who said it was the reason he went back and "finished" the original Star Wars films by re-editing and adding new CGI.

So point B, the finish, is often the deadline. Whether self-imposed, or put upon us by someone else, there's a hard date when our work must be finished.

For this newsletter, it's 8am every Saturday morning.

Whether it's my best work or not, whether it feels finished or not, whether I would like to polish it up a bit more or not, it has to ship at 8am Saturday.

Now, if you're like me, you're good friends with Procrastination, one of Resistance's good friends and conspirators.

So I need structures, systems, and deadlines.

I didn't have these when I started this newsletter. But I knew I needed to create momentum, so I started without them.

Part of the reason I picked Saturday is because it gives me the entire work week to write, edit, and polish. That gave me the skeleton of a structure. Because I don't want to be writing this late Friday night or early Saturday morning, my self-imposed deadline is 5pm Friday. That's when I schedule the final version of this email to send the following morning, fully ready or not.

Building the structure out further, I know I'll want time to let the text sit for a bit before I come back to edit and polish it. Before sitting down to write the first draft of this dispatch on Monday, April 10, I built out my complete structure with tasks in Asana. Here's what it looks like:

• Monday - choose subject and write first draft

• Tuesday - let it sit

• Wednesday - proofread and edit content

• Thursday - final polish of content

• Friday - post final content on my website for the Read Online version and schedule dispatch in ConvertKit for Saturday morning

Simple enough, but it gives me daily signposts to know whether I'm on track to having something to send out Saturday morning. This gives action a path to take. It reduces some of the friction inherent to the process.

So back to the building in public part.

When people see you building in public, if what you're creating is of interest to them, they'll join you for the journey. We like having a front row seat to watching something get built.

Case in point,  sharing on LinkedIn  that I published my first newsletter last Saturday bumped my subscribers from 24 to 38. Now I'm even more motivated to keep writing.

Action > Momentum > Motivation > Action

And now there's a cycle that will keep building upon itself.

Will every dispatch be easy to write? No. Will there be days I don't feel like writing? Yes. Will there be days that imposter syndrome shows up in a trojan horse? Yup.

But now I have some tools to fight Resistance. I'm not unprepared, sitting in the safety of my basement, where it can whisper, "Just quit. No one will ever know."

Have you built anything in public before? How'd it go? Reply to this dispatch and let me know!

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a creative friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

AI as a Creative Tool

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #001 • 3.5 min read

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I would argue that AI is not a replacement for creative skill. It's merely a tool creatives and artists have at their disposal to enhance or speed up the creative process.

I’ve seen this in my own personal experience with the generative art platform, Midjourney.

I’ve been able to draw since my childhood. Whether with the trusty ol' pencil, pen, ink brush, or sketching and painting digitally in Photoshop or on the iPad, I would consider myself an artist. An illustrator.

It’s not my full-time job, but I have made a few commissioned pieces in addition to drawing for my own enjoyment. And I would draw more if I had more time. And that’s what Midjourney gives me: time.

I can describe an illustration I envision in my mind and it comes to life in a moment. Something that would take me hours to create, if not days in some cases.

It allows me to ideate, to see what different styles or compositions look like. To figure out the tone that makes the most sense.

Sometimes, you just want to get an idea out of your head to where you can see it with your eyes.

In some cases, the final result from Midjourney is useable as-is. Sometimes, to get exactly what you want, it requires some manual editing in Photoshop. But having the visual example and a good base with which to begin my own work is a huge advantage.

Which means that, as an artist, AI art can give me an advantage over artists who refuse to use it, and instead spend real-time creating each version of a thumbnail to get to their first solid idea, to begin the work of building it up layer by layer, only to realize half-way through—or when they’re done—that it didn’t turn out how they had hoped.

What if it only took 15 minutes of experimenting in Midjourney to figure that out, lock in on the approach you wanted to take, and then begin the work of creating the final piece?

As an artist, that means finishing each piece faster, which means more pieces created in the same amount of time. If it’s a commissioned project, you get paid sooner and move to the next one. You’ve just increased your income level.

If you’re working on a personal project, you can finish sooner, add it to your portfolio, and start on your next idea.

Think of it like storyboarding a movie.

No professional filmmaker would grab the camera and the script and just start shooting. There are months of preproduction that go into every hollywood film. And part of that process is storyboarding. Figuring out the camera angels, the action, the pacing, the order of each scene, and the order of all the scenes in the movie, to make the finished film.

Storyboards are a quick way to see the finished film before you shoot a single frame, at a fraction of the time and cost.

Have you used AI to help with your creative process? How so?

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a creative friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.