Book Notes: "Show Your Work!", by Austin Kleon

So I'm mostly just going to talk about my favorite part of the book, which makes this really not a full review.  Good thing I call these things "Book Notes" and not "Book Reviews", huh? :)

"Show Your Work!", by Austin Kleon is about, well, doing creative work and sharing it. It feels about half illustration and half text; it was a really quick read.

Here's a quotation that illustrates the idea from it that I really liked:

Once a day, after you’ve done your day’s work, go back to your documentation and find one little piece of your process that you can share. Where you are in your process will determine what that piece is. If you’re in the very early stages, share your influences and what’s inspiring you. If you’re in the middle of executing a project, write about your methods or share works in progress. If you’ve just completed a project, show the final product, share scraps from the cutting-room floor, or write about what you’ve learned. If you have lots of projects out into the world, you can report on how they’re doing—you can tell stories about how people are interacting with your work.

To be honest, I liked this both as a writer (creative person) and as a reader (consumer of creative works). I enjoy following my favorite writers and musicians and such on Twitter, and hearing bits and bobs about what they did at work each day.

If content creation is the publicity of the present and future, well, this feels like a really honest way to go about it: just talk a bit about what you did today.

Good stuff.


Peace of Christ to you, 
Jessica Snell




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