1.
School Bus Dogs and Orange Birds — digital artworks by Matthew Murray
From the Community
I first came across Matthew Murray here on Substack (probably on a comments section of someone else’s post - always a good place to hunt for great creators!) and back in Autumn 2022 he posted about his journey through art:
I was inspired by this post not just because I liked the art (I, too, resonate with abstracts as much as other more classical forms of art), but because of his somewhat dogged determination to express his creativity in the face of ‘things not going quite right’. Much of human experience is quite like that… until you experience a moment when something sings and you fall in love, and then you have to nurture that love until another moment when something sings, and you fall in love again.
2.
Zombies, Run! — a gamified running app from Six to Start
From the Internet
Some of you will know about this already, and some of you wouldn’t care at all because you don’t like zombies or running.
It’s here because I feel it’s a product of creative inspiration - from the app graphics, the voice acting, the story writing, and the very concept of using all of those outlets to facilitate a running discipline.
The trailer above is from 2015, and I still like it.
3.
Indistractable by Nir Eyal — a book recommendation from us.
From our Library
There are many things to take away from this book, and for a thorough overview you can check out this article (which is also the source of the image above so I hope that’s ok with these creators!)
Our 30-second summary:
You can’t immunise against distraction, if you haven’t defined traction. What’s your intention? Are your actions aligned with that?
Schedule those actions.
“Am I doing what I’m supposed to be doing?” I asked myself,
“I don’t know… what am I supposed to be doing?” I answered.
I have this conversation a lot, and it’s not a helpful monologue. Schedule actions, then you can gauge your traction and identify dis-traction.
The image above links to a hard copy you can buy, and it’s also available on Audible.
CREATIVITY AND PRODUCTIVITY
I admit to being something of a productivity junkie. But I do think there are wise nuggets to be gained from the endless stream of productivity p**n out there. ‘Creativity’ is often imagined to be this free-flowing endeavor that’s very intuitive and non-linear, occurring in a space where there is no time - which it is.
And yet there’s a discipline involved in creating the ground so you can enter that space, and time is a tool.
writes a great newsletter about this - certainly, not all of his strategies work for me (some would be downright detrimental), but I love how he records almost his entire creative practice as an experiment, always treading the line between creativity and productivity.
#053: Indistractable
I loved these Matthew Murray images and will check out his newsletter! I used to create a lot of abstract art. When I first started with poetry comics it was using abstract art. These images make me want to go back and make some more abstract art of my own again.
Adam Ming's newsletter is great! I love the idea of a creative practice as a creative practice. In other words, you experiment and make your process a type of creative expression independent of the results that you produce.
Great book! Been there but you are reminding me it’s worth a re read :)