Creative Reading

Having a positive relationship with creativity is extremely importance to me. I have always created things, and found value not just in what I made but in the spiritual happenings and tender feelings that come during the creative act. How this has manifested itself in someone who loves reading is easily predicted- I have cultivated quite a collection of books focused on creativity. Whether or not I have read them is another story (any book lover can tell you that buying books and reading them are two separate hobbies). I am certain a few have been left out of this list due to my terrible bookshelf organization system, but you can find most of my creative reading collection below along with whatever thoughts first come to mind when I pick up each book while sitting here at my desk writing this piece:

The Artists Way - Julia Cameron
1. I purchased this book after an upsetting episode at work last winter. I found myself to bogged down by the dreams I had for my life, and how unachievable they seemed. I was walking around the nearby pond during my lunch break, it was the dead of winter and not a leaf was left on a tree. I stared at the still water and wondered why I had taken out so much student debt, why I had spent years of my life convincing myself that my interest in the sciences was enough to pursue them as a career, why I had failed to find a job that paid well enough to pay off my loans, why why why was my life falling apart, falling so far away from what I had always dreamed it would look like? I decided I needed serious coaching, and I had heard the Artist's Way was a coaching in book form and decided to give it a go. This book pulled me from a deep depression, feelings of failure and pessimism that had clouded my every thought seemed to clear with every passing week. I recommend to anyone. Whether you want to be an artist or not, I agree with Cameron when she says that "creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy, pure creative energy." There is no reason denying yourself what you were born to be, and it is seriously messing up your happiness if you continue down that path.
Big Magic - Elizabeth Gilbert
1. Gilbert herself is quoted on the rear saying "without the Artist's Way, there would be no eat pray love". You can see the influence of that work very strongly in her own writings on creativity found in Big Magic. But there is incredible value in what she writes here, condensing, modernizing, and not giving you a bunch of homework.
Steal Like An Artist - Austin Kleon
1. I read this years ago now, but could probably use a refresher. This book is small with lots of pictures, making it an easy one to pour through when you need that quick reminder that no artist on the planet has come without influence of others.
Show Your Work - Austin Kleon
1. Same author as the last, but this time focusing on not just the act of creativity, but the importance of putting your work out where others can see it.
Put Your Mother On The Ceiling - Richard De Mille
1. One of the most prized books in my collection, though it focuses on imagination and not creativity. While those two terms are inherintly linked, I do not believe they are the same. But that's a topic for another day. And though its only filled with games to help you grow your imagination muscle, you may find this book giving you a confidence in your ideas and choices that you make when building your own worlds. It did for me.
The Art of Creative Thinking - Rod Judkins
1. We have made it to the part of the list that discusses books I have thrifted but have yet to read. And what can I say about them really?
The Origins of Creativity - Edward O. Wilson
1. E. O. Wilson was required reading while getting my Ecology degree. And when I saw he had a book on creativity, of course I had to pick it up. What I hope is inside- theories on why we developed the connection to creativity, and maybe other species that present creative tendencies and how that differs from the way we experience it as humans.
Creativity: Genius and Other Myths - Robert W. Weisberg
1. Just the title alone gives me a stroke of confidence. I haven't read it, but I hope to have plenty of years ahead of me to get around to it.
The Creative Act: A Way of Being - Rick Rubin
1. idk bro lol