I like the idea of starting new notebooks by stationing guardian spirits inside the front cover, to watch over things. For my latest notebook, I went with Emily Dickinson:
In this short Life that only lasts an hour
How much – how little – is within our power
Here’s the original, from the fantastic book, The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems:
“Sometimes we are so confused and sad that all we can do is glue one thing to another. Use white glue and paper from the trash, glue paper onto paper, glue scraps and bits of fabric, have a tragic movie playing in the background, have a comforting drink nearby, let the thing you are doing be nothing, you are making nothing at all, you are just keeping your hands in motion, putting one thing down and then the next thing down and sometimes crying in between.”
—Lynda Barry
“I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.”
—Frédéric Chopin
Wake is such a perfect word for the moment. Wake: a watch, a vigil, after something has died. Wake: a trail of disturbed water left by some unstoppable craft. Wake: the aftermath. Wake: to stir, to be roused from sleep.
In the wake of all of this, I’ve been trying to stay away from Twitter, trying to visit the bliss station, trying to be alone with my thoughts. But my curse is that I can’t seem to have thoughts without speaking them. I need to speak to think and to know what I’m thinking. This can be potentially disastrous in public, and in private, it puts an undue burden on my loved ones, because conversation is like the mood slime in Ghostbusters: to speak thoughts is to transfer thoughts, and the listener, no matter what, always absorbs something. (Why else are shrinks so expensive?) My wife and I try to save our conversation for the open air on our morning walks, the idea being that most of any bad energy we release will be carried away by the wind. But it doesn’t always work out that way. And, for both of us, as much as we want to stay light, to be the light or reflect it, our thoughts have, not inappropriately, gotten darker in the past months.
So I’ve been spending more and more time in the pages of my notebook. Talking in black ink. Letting the pages absorb any poison. Scratching out thoughts if I can’t stand to look at them. Underlining the thoughts I want to save, to share, maybe even, God forbid, tweet.
It’s a simple idea that I said over and over on the journal tour: a notebook is a good place to have bad ideas. It’s also a safe space to share your secrets. To think the unthinkable. To say the unsayable…
If you’re struggling, too, consider getting a paper notebook. (I’m happy to sell you mine, but any cheap drugstore one will do.) Spend some time with it every day. Fill it with your bad thoughts, your bad ideas. Tell it all the things you shouldn’t tell Twitter. It won’t judge you, troll you, or talk back to you. It won’t spy on you, ping you, or notify you. When you’re done with it, you can burn it for heat, or you can save it for your children, so they know what it was like.
(A page from The Steal Like An Artist Journal. Perhaps I should’ve added “jailed” or “deported.”)
A few nights ago, I was looking at the moon and I thought, “I’d like to read a cultural history of the moon.” I googled, and there it was. My friend Matt said, “Ideally, that is exactly how one should find everything they read… and write.”
It’s really that simple. You find the books you want to read… and if you can’t find them, you write them.
I know I’ve said it before, but now I have a flowchart for the rest of my life.
10 books I loved this year, in no particular order:
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
I loved this novel, which runs on the voice of the main character, an old preacher named John Ames, who is writing a letter to his seven-year-old son about his life and struggles with his faith. Beautiful book.
Ursula Franklin, The Real World of Technology
A series of radio lectures given in 1989, and yet, 100% relevant to today, as we face the rise of techno-fascism. A book and a thinker I wish more people knew about.
Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
A terrific hybrid of memoir and art writing — I particularly loved the sections on David Wojnarowicz and the AIDS crisis.
Steve Silberman, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
A fascinating history that includes everything from Nazis to Tesla to Rain Man. A ton here relevant to education and parenting kids who think differently.
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America
Some people question how much of this travelogue is true, but who the hell really cares when the writing is so delicious? Steinbeck himself wrote about the impossibility of capturing a nation based on one trip.
Tom Hart, Rosalie Lightning
A devastating comics memoir about losing a toddler, using art to sort through your life, and the struggle of being an artist with a family in America. Amazing feat.
John Holt, How Children Learn
Holt’s work, first published in 1967, had more of an impact on how I parent and how I think about education than any other book I read this year. His message is simple: children are learning animals, and the best way to teach them is to trust them and get out of their way. Still feels radical.
Chris Offutt, My Father, The Pornographer
Offutt’s memoir about his upbringing and his dad’s writing career also functions as a kind of cautionary tale of working from home and making a living from your art. Really great writing.
Jon Klassen, The Hat Trilogy
It’s tough to hit that sweet spot in the venn diagram of books kids love that adults love to read, and it’s just as to tough to wrap up a beloved trilogy. I spent a lot of bedtimes reading these books.
Joy Williams, Ninety-Nine Stories of God
A weird, wonderful batch of super-short stories. Perfect pre-dream reading.
Here are 15 more books I liked, all of which could’ve easily made my top 10:
Browse my notes on all the books I read this year, my tips for reading more, and a decade’s worth of my previous reading years.
Want to be more productive next year? Get a wall calendar.
For big, important creative work, not just the day-to-day meetings and appointments, a paper wall calendar is a simple, visual tool that helps you plan, gives you concrete goals, and keeps you on track.
The comedian Jerry Seinfeld has a wall calendar method that helps him stick to his daily joke writing. You start by breaking your work into daily chunks. Each day, when you’re finished with your work, make a big fat X in the day’s box. Every day, instead of worrying about your total progress, your goal is to just fill a box.
“After a few days you’ll have a chain,” Seinfeld says. “Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”
Amassing a body of work or building a career is a lot about the slow accumulation of little bits of effort over time. Writing a page each day doesn’t seem like much, but do it for 365 days and you have enough to fill a novel.
Work + time = art.
If you get my new wall calendar, you’ll have little bits of monthly encouragement along the way — and when you’re done with the year’s work, you can cut the calendar down the middle with an x-acto blade and you’ll have a dozen images you can play with. Add a 13×13 inch frame, and voila! Cheap art to hang back on the wall.
Buy one here:
See more images from the calendar, here.
If you order any of my books from Bookpeople here in Austin, Texas, before December 7, I will sign and personalize them!
The holiday deal is over, but you can always get personalized books from Bookpeople. How to order: Go to Bookpeople.com, add any or all of my books to your cart, and in the comments field during check out, indicate the name of the person to whom you would like the book(s) signed.
Direct links to each book:
I will sign as many books as you order! They make great, affordable gifts for the office, classroom, or friends and family!
Also: the folks at Pageaday.com are offering a 20% discount on the 2017 Steal Like An Artist wall calendar. Order here and enter in the code Kleon at checkout. (It’s also available at Amazon, B&N.com, and Calendars.com.)
Whenever I’m told to go after “low-hanging fruit,” I think of drawing a cartoon with two characters standing over a tombstone.
“He picked the low-hanging fruit,” one says.
“Yeah,” says the other. “But he never climbed the tree.”
“In my experience signs are usually a lot more subtle.”
—Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys
I had to fly to a gig the afternoon after the election, so my wife and I took the boys to lunch. As we were leaving the house, I looked down at the floor and saw this scrap of paper. I knew immediately what it was — it was a word from the introduction to my own book, which I’d cut up and collaged. This scrap hadn’t made it. I wasn’t sure how it got there, since I’d done the cutting in my studio. (I figured it had stuck to my shoe and I had tracked it into the house.) But however it got there, there it was, on the floor of my laundry room. A single word. “Embrace.” I took a picture of it and put it in my pocket.
At lunch, a waiter asked a woman how she was and what she’d like to drink. “Well, I’m depressed,” she said. “So I’ll have a margarita with salt.” Soon, the woman’s friend arrived. She got up from her chair and they gave each other the longest hug.
I had not cried yet, but then and there, I almost lost it.
It’s been a sad couple of days. For now, I wish you margaritas and hugs… or their equivalent.