Here's a Summary of Brenda Ueland's Book!

Garr Reynolds did a very nice summary of "If You Want to Write" on his blog - so here it is, if you want to get the salient parts of Brenda Ueland's book in just a coupla minutes. I'd still recommend getting a copy and stashing it somewhere - as a creative artifact of sorts. Having books in your life changes things. But in the meantime, have at it!

Book summary on Presentation Zen

Enjoy!

Bonus: Check out the link "How to be Creative" at the bottom of the page. Also useful!

If You Want to Write (or Draw or Sing or...)

I just finished this book by Brenda Ueland. She was a prolific writer and a teacher - and this book, though written way back in 1938, is often cited as the best book on creativity and the artistic spirit that you can read. I think this book can be life-changing. If you are either pondering your own creative path or are someone who inspires and teaches others, this book is a very important one. There are many books out there about creativity, including some that I will highlight here, but at the core many of them are re-stating what's in this book. This is one you want to stash in your nightstand.

Graphic Novels: The Arrival by Shaun Tan

I am thrilled to see more and more graphic novels taking new directions visually. I have to admit I've never been that into the classic "comic book" style, probably because my own drawing style is much more textured than those are and so I don't relate that well. But there are lots of neat graphic novels out there. This one, "The Arrival," has no words at all. It's a great surrealistic story of the immigrant experience. Shaun Tan creates a world that is impossible to interpret - you can't read the signs, everything looks weird and unfamiliar - and in doing so really drives home what it's like to be an immigrant in a new land. This is a popular theme in this medium - "American Born Chinese" covers some of the same ground. I'll elaborate on that one soon.

Don't Eat/Read/Watch that Junk!

I'm reading a really interesting book right now called "The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America."

I haven't finished it, but I'm at the part where kids in schools are burning piles of comic books.

It's all about how comic books got accused of fomenting all sorts of misdeeds in the nation's youth in the middle of the last century. And while reading this, something occurred to me: media is like food.

I love media. I love movies, and TV shows, and books, and radio, and DVDs, and the Internet. And I would argue that just about everybody likes food.

Problem is, there's food that's good for you and there's food that's bad for you. We expend enormous amounts of energy teaching our kids how to eat. What to eat, how much, what not to eat, Sesame Street songs about "any time foods" vs. "sometime foods,"... etc. Sometimes this gets to the point of encouraging the opposite of what we want in eating behavior when we try too hard or treat food like a reward.

Well, media is the same way. There are things that are appropriate for different ages. There are things that one kid likes and that terrify another kid. But most of all, we have to learn how to be consumers of media the same way we learn to consume food. Not all of it is good, and you need some basic judgment to know what you are dealing with.

To help with this, I recommend this website: Commonsense Media. It's a place where you can get reviews of new movies, find out what's going on with pop culture, and just be a savvy consumer so you can teach your kids to do the same.

It's just plain dumb to think burning piles of comic books, or records, or whatever is going to solve anything. The minute you tell one person what can or cannot be said, that's a crack in our free society. But you can be smart about media "nutrition" and help kids have a healthy relationship with it all.

A Good Book: Drawing on the Right Side of The Brain

This book has been around for a very long time. It's a great book for showing how drawing involves a simple set of skills and it lets you try and practice each one individually. You can get this at Amazon too, and it also has a workbook if you're into putting all your stuff in a fancy workbook. But paper works fine too.

Betty Edwards likes to take adult learners and teach them how to make "good" drawings, which can seem a little like a gimmick. But it's not - she's really interested in helping people reach new areas of their minds. I think that's the best thing about her book: it emphasizes the "right brain" state of drawing, where you stop being verbal and go into a mode of creating visually. I see this with students all the time, and I adapt my materials and activities to help it happen.

Again, if you're one of my students, I can loan this to you...

A Good Book: Understanding Comics

Scott McCloud has written a number of books on making comics, but his best one remains this one: "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art." It's a really nice explanation of how a comic gets put together and why it works. You can get it on Amazon.

Or, if you're one of my students, I can loan you my copy - if you give it back...