Keep Going by Austin Kleon was published in April 2019. Little did the author realize that within a year, we’d be entering a pandemic and lockdowns which would make his book on “10 ways to stay creative in good times and bad” even more relevant. Now, six years later, does the advice in this book still hold up?
This is my third read of Keep Going (more on that later). I read it when it first came out, then again during lockdown, and I recently felt like it was time to revisit it in the face of Trump and Musk’s fascist government and how it’s crushing a lot of people’s desire to make and share art.
Kleon rose to fame during the “You wrote a cool blog post, here’s a book deal” period in publishing, when his article on how to steal like an artist was transformed into a book called, get this, Steal Like An Artist. I thought that first book was very clearly a blog post’s worth of info stretched across a book, and so I got rid of it almost immediately after reading it. But his second book, Show Your Work! had a little more substance to it, and I think this third one was the best of all. He doesn’t seem to have released any new books, so I guess he felt like he said what he had to say.
This book is about overcoming creative blocks. Kleon seems to have mostly been inspired by the issue of being on social media, how it not only supplies a constant flow of news and other people’s work to compare yourself against, but also how easy it is to get caught up in thinking about what will play well on the socials rather than about what you want to create, and/or how easy it is to get demoralized when what you make doesn’t do well on social media.
Kleon was writing this book in the midst of the first Trump presidency, with the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements in full swing, and another contentious election year looming. Every day felt like a constant deluge of bad news; another bad decision from Trump, another Black person senselessly killed, another artist you previously liked revealed to be a creep. Things have only gotten worse since.
How do you keep inspired to make art, especially if your art isn’t specifically speaking to the big headline news of the day? How do you balance staying informed, fighting back, and still creating your work?
These are the topics Kleon seeks to address, albeit in a pretty breezy format. This is the sort of book that is designed for the casual reader, broken into short chapters printed on small pages, interspersed with the author’s blackout poetry, cartoons, and graphs that illustrate his points.
I think this book has some pretty useful advice and is written in a way that acknowledges the reality that most people aren’t full-time artists or writers, and we have to fit our creative endeavors in around a day job and family commitments. There’s no “You must follow this perfect routine that requires you to have 8 hours a day to create in a dedicated space while someone else watches your kids and cooks dinner” style suggestions. No “Go on a 10 day art retreat in an exotic locale.” It’s more like “Here’s some stuff that works for me and/or some other smart people I talked to.”
There’s nothing especially groundbreaking here, but if you need a book you can turn to for some advice, where you can get some good ideas in just 5-10 minutes of reading, without having to think too hard about it, it can come in pretty handy. I personally find it to be a reassuring and relatable read that makes me feel a little better each time I read it.
CWs and TWs: Brief mentions of mental health struggles and the abusive behavior of “art monsters”.
Source and Format: I purchased a paperback copy at Edmonds Bookshop.
Reading Challenge Prompts
Brick & Mortar Books: Re-read a favorite. As mentioned in the review, this is my third reading of this book, and I’ll probably return to it again in future tough times. This was the very last prompt I needed to fill! I finished this book on March 15 and immediately drove over to Redmond to drop off my bingo card.
By the way, I am not counting this for my physical TBR challenge, even though I’ve owned it since 2019. I decided not to count re-reads for two reasons. One, this challenge is really about finally cracking open books that I bought and never read. Two, I’ve been feeling lost in Monstress and thinking I might do a re-read to refresh myself on the story so far; that’s 8 volumes and I don’t feel like writing that many reviews on one series. It’s looking like I’ll easily exceed my 12 book goal this year even without counting re-reads.
Reading Challenge Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 7 of 25, no bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 10 of 25, 1 bingo.
Book Riot: 10 of 25.
Physical TBR: 5 of 12.
Brick & Mortar: 25 of 25, BLACKOUT! Stay tuned for a post about how I filled the non-book prompts.
World of Whimm: 11 of 24, no bingos.