41 pages • 1 hour read
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
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Chapter 9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “Be Boring. (It’s the Only Way to Get Work Done.)”
Content Warning: This section discusses drug use and addiction.
Kleon debunks the myth of “the creative genius doing drugs and running around and sleeping with everyone” (119). This unrealistic image romanticizes behaviors that are unhealthy and don’t contribute to actual creative work. Instead, artists should try to implement practical “boring” things like staying out of debt, keeping their day job, scheduling creative time, sticking to a routine, logging their daily tasks, and surrounding themselves with steady, grounded people.
Chapter 9 Analysis
In Chapter 9, Kleon ask his reader to assess their own behavior as an artist. Rather than focus on one’s behavior toward the larger community, this chapter focuses on creatives’ behaviors toward themselves and conveys Kleon’s interest in self-care and in art as an inherently beneficial process.
It also challenges the trope of the “tortured artist” (119), a trope that Kleon thinks is informed by a handful of notable artists in the 21st century who either suffered from addiction or exhibited troubled behavior. Published in 2012, Kleon’s writing predates the cultural shifts that led to the coalescence of the #MeToo movement in 2016. Kleon bluntly states that the behavior of those dubbed “tortured” is “for the superhuman and those who want to die young” (119).
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