Every (work)day I write something on my mug and post it to Twitter: @austinkleon
TALK, TALK: A LOOK AT MY OFFICE AND SOME RECENT INTERVIEWS
On my two-desk setup with from the desk of…
I have two desks in my office — one’s “analog” and one’s “digital.” The analog desk has nothing but markers, pens, pencils, paper, and newspaper. Nothing electronic is allowed on the desk — this is how I keep myself off Twitter, etc. This is where most of my work is born. The digital desk has my laptop, my monitor, my scanner, my Wacom tablet, and a MIDI keyboard controller for if I want to record any music. (Like a lot of writers, I’m a wannabe musician.) This is where I edit, publish, etc.
On “How To Steal Like An Artist” going viral in an epic, 1 1/2 hour-long interview my friend John Unger on his radio show, Art Heroes:
It’s been a really big happy mess….People keep saying, “Oh, nice problem to have,” and yes, it is a nice problem to have, but problems still require time, effort, and sometimes money to solve.
On stealing from the avant-garde with Fringe Magazine:
What’s fun for me is taking this avant-garde technique and trying to make something fairly traditional out of it. Something you can send your grandma. Or your mom, maybe. Maybe not your grandma.
On “my vision” for Newspaper Blackout with E-Junkie:
It’s less of a vision, and more of a smell. The smell of marker fumes.
On art as a career with The Daily Brink:
My mom always bought me tons of art supplies, and we had scheduled time for making stuff every day when I was really little. She also let me bang on pots and pans with her wooden spoons. I spent most of my afternoons in high school hiding in the art room, but I never considered being an artist a serious thing to do as a career — I thought I’d go off to college and become a professor. A professor of what, I didn’t know, but I figured I’d teach and write books. Sometime in middle school I think I stumbled across the term “Renaissance man.” That’s what I wanted to be — somebody who does a lot of different things.
On my favorite books with Austin Eavesdropper:
I love everything Kurt Vonnegut and Lynda Barry and Saul Steinberg ever put out. I love Joe Brainard’s I Remember, which is a memoir made up of a bunch of sentences that begin with “I Remember…” I love Carl Jung’s memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. I love Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems. I love William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow. I love David Hockney’s book, Secret Knowledge. So many books! Since 2005, I’ve kept lists of the best things I read every year.
EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK
Back in March, Chronicle Books published one of my sketchbook pages in their neat little book, Everything Is Going To Be OK.
CHALK MUGS
Meg bought me a mug at World Market that has a speech balloon chalkboard on it, so every work day I draw or write something on it and post it on Twitter.
Looking at a blank page of paper is pretty scary, but if you’ve got this repeatable project set out, you know what you’re supposed to do.
—Kate Bingaman Burt
You can get your own chalk mug here.
THE YEAR IN REVIEW, 2010
Things that happened in 2010:
January: we released the “Agoraphobia” print on 20×200. (Sold out in December!) I made the “Creativity Is Subtraction” poem, which became a sort of slogan/rallying cry for the book. Started keeping broadsheets. Had some work featured in the “Old Media / Old News” exhibit in St. Louis. Wrote “On Keeping A Logbook,” about keeping a daily list instead of a diary.
February: I gave a talk on “Visual Thinking For Writers” at VizThink Austin. Gave my first Pecha Kucha slideshow talk, which went over really well. Posted “25 Quotes To Help You Steal Like An Artist.” (Followed it up with 25 more in June.) Drew on sticky notes for TEDxAustin.
I’d had the idea for a while to launch a site where folks could post their own blackout poems, but I didn’t have the right technology yet to really make it happen. Then, back in January, Tumblr enabled a feature where users could submit their own posts. A month later, I finally launched a Newspaper Blackout Tumblr–I had no idea that by the end of the year it would have over 12,000 followers.
March: SXSW!!!
April: Released another 20×200 print, “The Travelogue.” Newspaper Blackout came out on the 13th, almost 2 years after I sold the book to HarperCollins. Had a release party at BookPeople here in Austin. My friends Wire & Twine released the “Creativity Is Subtraction” t-shirts. Oh, and I got to meet on of my cartoonist heroes, John Porcellino.
May: I almost lost my mind doing promotion for the book, and posted my sketchbook and a mini sketchbook manifesto.
June: I sweated a lot and tried to explain my “you don’t have to go to college” tag.
July: I gave a talk on my experiences with publishing and social media at TEDxPennQuarter in Washington, D.C. Gave a workshop and showed off some poems at the Austin Museum of Art.
August: summer was winter. The best thing that happened was that my best friend shipped my drums down to me from Ohio, and I started playing in a band with my friends. There’s nothing like making music with your friends.
September: PBS Newshour ran a segment on the poems, and we opened our new store. I celebrated five years of blogging, and then wrote about how to keep it up in “Punt.”
October: I drew The National on Austin City Limits and a Teleportal Reading. Met Maira Kalman! Celebrated 5 years of blacking out and started posting Newspaper Blackout horoscopes.
November: I drew Lyle Lovett taping ACL and Fun Fun Fun Fest. Posted another notebook.
December: After three years of designing websites at the law school, I took a new job as copywriter for Springbox. (I’ll be starting the new gig in January 2011.) Back in January this year, I wrote “The Builder and the Keeper,” a post of my thoughts on web design that pointed towards where I’d go at the end of the year. And a few days ago I started a new little mini-site called “I never thought I’d say this, but…”
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So, yeah. Not bad. Every year, no matter what, I always say, “I wish I had read more.” Last year I tweeted: “For me, healthy+happy = books. My biggest failure in the past couple years has been the decline of my reading habit. Trying to remedy that.” And I’m still trying.
But all in all, 2010 was a good year. I got no beef with it. Here’s to 2011. Hope to read more books, make more art, and shed a few pounds. Happy New Year!
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