Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

What’s Keeping You From Your Best Work? These 3 Words Will Set You Free

·

,
What's keeping you from your best work (Photo: Candace Braun Davison for LifeBetweenWeekends.com)

There’s a saying in journalism that rings so true a friend tattooed it on her body: Kill your darlings. Whoa, whoa, whoa — don’t panic. As morbid as it sounds, it has nothing to do with serial killers or crime sprees. It’s a reminder that in order to create something truly compelling and great, you often have to get rid of a clever turn of phrase you love or a quote that seems too juicy to ignore. If it doesn’t add to the story, it’s got to go.

And as a writer, artist or creative-person-in-the-world, that can be shockingly hard to do. We don’t want to let go of the good to make way for the great, because that nice-but-convoluted subplot or that “but it took me two hours to make!” graph on a Powerpoint presentation is good on its own, so it must add to the project’s overall greatness, right?

Wrong. And yes, it sucks.

Artist and writer Austin Kleon puts it a more delicate way in his book Steal Like an Artist:

“Creativity is subtraction.”

We live in an era where people are inundated with information — words to read, links to click, strings of texted emojis to decipher (what’s the deal with that creepy demon-face one, anyway?!) — and part of what makes something beautiful is choosing what to leave out. Heck, Apple has made billions off of the art of simplicity, and Dr. Seuss only used 50 different words to create his bestselling book, The Cat in the Hat.

 

What's keeping you from your best work (Photo: Candace Braun Davison for LifeBetweenWeekends.com)
Photo: Candace Braun Davison

How can you make your creative restrictions work for you? What kinds of parameters could lead to your best work? Kleon suggests trying to write a song during your lunch break, or shooting a movie with just your cell phone. (A similar idea paid off big time for those Blair Witch kids, remember?)

In that sense, you can think of this Tuesday Takeaway in two ways: The next time you feel a groan coming on about what you’re lacking, consider it a challenge to create within those restraints. Second, when you look at the finished product, see if there’s anything you can remove or delete that’d make the piece clearer, stronger and more compelling as a result. Leave a little more room for interpretation in your work; you may be surprised how much more people get out of it.

 

201503-tues-takeaway-kleon-book-coverThis post is part of Life Between Weekends’ Tuesday Takeaway series. Every Tuesday, we’ll share the most compelling insight we’ve gleaned from a book, movie, tour, documentary or article to inspire you during the workday. 

Optimized with PageSpeed Ninja