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If you have been practicing or developing a certain technique, analyze your development and how it contributes to the piece. If you’d been practicing crosshatching—did it improve in this piece?

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“Work which remains permeated with the play attitude is art." — John Dewey

At an extreme, constant progress leads us to chase perfection. In turn, if we can’t do something perfectly, we just won’t do it. Perfectionism creates an impossible standard for us to meet. This is just one of many reasons we start procrastinating and get blocked.

“I had thought that ‘loosen up’ meant ‘make sloppy drawings,’ but it really meant to relax and not worry about how the drawing is going to come out.” — Richard Feynman

In an art class, Richard Feynman was instructed to draw without looking at the paper. He was impressed with the results, noticing a “funny, semi-Picasso like strength” in his work. He knew that it would be impossible to draw well without looking at the paper, so he didn’t try

If you want to write a book, write at least one sentence today. If you want to draw, sketch out a person or an object—something in front of you. If you want to make music, record yourself humming a melody. Try to create it on an instrument or in your computer. Do this daily.

If you're seeking inspiration: Follow the first thing that pops into your head after 30 seconds. Do the thing you think you want to do. Write a list out and roll dice. Don’t make your goal to “finish a thing”; make it to “start with anything.”

Whatever your creative operation is, make it so you can complete it within a minute. Nobody does anything well in a minute. Put that possibility out of your mind. Focus on the process. There will be a time and place to care about results—but it’s not while you do the work.

“If you get so good at drawing with your right hand that you can even make a beautiful sketch with your eyes closed, you should immediately change to your left hand to avoid repeating yourself.” — Krsto Hegedušić

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“You can’t make a poem with ideas. … You make it with words.” — Edgar Degas, to Stéphane Mallarmé

If you work in film or the recording arts, sounds, scenes, and storyboards are references as well. Filmmaker David Lynch calls this “firewood,” and is constantly looking out for and stockpiling music to inspire his scenes in his films.

“When I read the book there were so many ready-made scenes, and the great venue of the oil fields and all that. Those were kind of the obvious things that seemed worth making a film about.” — Paul Thomas Anderson on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!

Throw out the piece of feedback that drains your personal energy, and makes you feel less excited about your work.

If a lot of people see your creative work all the time, then it’ll be more difficult for you to tinker and experiment. Reaching a smaller audience used to be a bug, but now it’s a feature. e.g., J. Cole shipped a new song to his *blog* inevitable.live/algorithm/clou…

Creative expression involves physical, mental, and emotional contributions. I like to represent these as the hands, the head, and the heart.