Austin Kleon

The world is crazy. Creative work is hard. And nothing is getting any easier! In his previous books—Steal Like an Artistand Show Your Work!, New York Times bestsellers with over a million copies in print combined—Austin Kleon gave readers the key to unlock their creativity and then showed them how to share it. Now he completes his trilogy with his most inspiring work yet. Keep Going gives the reader life-changing, illustrated advice and encouragement on how to stay creative, focused, and true to yourself in the face of personal burnout or external distractions. Here is how to Build a Bliss Station—a place or fixed period where you can disconnect from the world. How to see that Every Day Is Groundhog Day—yesterday’s over, tomorrow may never come, so just do what you can do today. How to Forget the Noun, Do the Verb—stop worrying about being a “painter” and just paint. Keep working. Keep playing. Keep searching. Keep giving. Keep living. Keep Going. It’s exactly the message all of us need, at exactly the right time.

10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad

Keep Going

Kailey Greenwood

Keep Working. Keep Playing. Keep Creating. In his previous books Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work!, both New York Times bestsellers, Austin Kleon gave readers the keys to unlock their creativity and showed them how to become known. Now he offers his most inspiring work yet, with ten simple rules for how to stay creative, focused, and true to yourself—for life. The creative life is not a linear journey to a finish line, it’s a loop—so find a daily routine, because today is the only day that matters. Disconnect from the world to connect with yourself—sometimes you just have to switch into airplane mode. Keep Going celebrates getting outdoors and taking a walk (as director Ingmar Bergman told his daughter, ”The demons hate fresh air”). Pay attention, and especially pay attention to what you pay attention to. Worry less about getting things done, and more about the worth of what you’re doing. Instead of focusing on making your mark, work to leave things better than you found them. Keep Going and its timeless, practical, and ethical principles are for anyone trying to sustain a meaningful and productive life.

Henri Bredt

Easy to read, digestible and most importantly, very inspiring. Good for the soul.

Lewis Barn

rumbledethumps

I love these books, and pick one up every time a new one comes out. Quick read, lots of pats on the back and "go get 'em, tiger!"'s to encourage people to be creative. 

While I enjoyed it and still read his blog every day, this is his third book in this series, and I honestly couldn't tell you how it is different from the first two.

Maria

I liked the author's earlier book, "Steal Like an Artist" so wanted to check out his other creativity books.

A lot of these ideas I heard before but the author presents them in an entertaining way. I enjoyed the first half especially of this book.

Nick Gracilla

An inspiring book(let?) from Kleon, "an author who draws." Here, he offers 10 tactics for cultivating a creative and motivated mindset — ways of reframing work, both creative and otherwise, and pushing ahead when the headwinds pick up. Recommended.

Andy Sporring

Belle

Super short, but had a few good points. Kleon is a good go-to when I want to feel inspired.

This book didn’t do it for me either. It’s very oriented to artists, and most things didn’t resonate with my experience. It’s very light on aspects are truly important for any creative process, but thankfully there are other books out there to deepen on those.

Raúl Barroso Moreno

Jennifer Kosche

Mal wieder ein inspirierendes Buch von Austin Kleon. Ich bin nicht mit jeder Idee aus „Keep Going“ auf einer Wellenlänge oder finde alles revolutionär, aber das muss ich ja auch nicht sein. Die Bücher machen immer Spaß und lesen sich wie eine interessante Diskussion mit einem guten Freund.

Ich liebe auch die Gestaltung: Zwischen den Kapiteln sind immer wieder Illustrationen von Austin Kleon und auch die Fotos aus seinem Journal am Ende sind immer ein kleines Highlight.

Auch, wenn sich die Bücher eigentlich an kreative Köpfe richten, finde ich auch immer was, was ich für mich mitnehmen kann und beende die Bücher schlauer und inspirierter, als ich sie begonnen habe.

Die ganze Rezension: https://www.jenni.works/keep-going-austin-kleon

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a nice dose of inspiration for artists. Nothing earth shattering but like a friend sitting next to you, encouraging you. Super quick read.

Another thought provoking book by Austin Kleon full of ideas and artwork on living a creative life. This time much more focused on actual artists, I still enjoyed reading it but liked the previous books “Steal like an artist“ and “Show your work“ better.

Chris Herrmann

Read this one before but so much great stuff it deserved a re-reading, especially during the pandemic.

Safiya 

A book about hope...

Hope that it's okay to have more time, be selfish, isolate yourself (not eternally that is) ... etc ... Many times I sent the writer virtual hugs for sharing his thoughts ... Thank You !

I guess that this should be your go to writer if you are interested in making art, understanding creativity (first-hand) or simply aspiring to live a fuller life. 

I believe that being an artist is not tied to a specific type/category of disciplines, rather it's just hitting a sort of "nirvana" as you go about doing your job, something you love to do, or simply something you do ... Because, like it or not we all at some point find the most ridicule job or that part of the job we hate so bad interesting... And that's another lesson to keeping your horizons open, and instead of rushing to qualify things take time to savour them.

Anyway, was a great one, short and fun!

100000% agreed : make art in order to enhance our life quality and this world better not the reverse...

من كان منكم يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر فليقل خيرا أو ليصمت

Mika

One word: comforting. Light and insightful read for a creative. I especially love the part about how making art is giving gifts using our natural gifts. Interesting perspective on how artists' minds work — on how creativity is about "being" and "becoming."

Pallavi Tirkey

I love how his trilogy follows the natural progress of a creative process. Going through the phase of generating inspiration (steal like an artist), of generating feedback to improve your work (show your work) and finally, the phase of finally letting the whole process continue throughout life, steadily. (Keep going). 
'Steal like an artist' and 'keep going' were my favorite, maybe because It was just what I needed at my creative phase. You can read one that is most relevant to the stage you are at. The one where you need a little push to unstuck yourself. So easy to read and to the point and fun too! I'm certain I'd be going back to these often in my life.

A’ishah Kamaludin

Finished reading all three Kleon’s books. ‘Show Your Work’ is still my favourite, but this one is a great motivation and feel-good book - first by being relatable, then extensive. 

My fav chapters, actionable and eye-opening would be:
#4 Make gifts, and
#8 When in doubt, tidy up - not because I need more of it but I realise that I always wanted to tidy up that doesn’t necessarily work well with messy creative minds. Perhaps, it’s just my being doubtful most of the time.. and procrastinating.

Anyaconda

I liked Austin Kleon's first two works. They were short and to the point, acting as a reminder of what, how and why we do art and creative work. I also enjoyed Keep Going, which as a procrastinator, I do struggle with the most. He's making the reader reflect on why we do what we do and what we as individual artists want to express. A cute compendium that fits on every artists shelf. The perfect SOS book to grab if you are in a slump and need a pick up. I received a copy from Netgalley and all opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Jeremy Cote

Note: I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

I thought this book was great. It's a short read that offers plenty of motivation to keep working on the stuff that makes you excited, and it made me want to continue my work. As any other artist, I often feel the sense of futility with my work. A common question is, "What's the point?" Austin Kleon's book makes a resounding statement that we should care about our work, and that it is important.

I really liked the brevity of the book. Too often I think we have the tendency to try and expound forever on a topic, but sometimes it's worth being brief and to the point.

I highly recommend this book to any other person looking to do work that matters.

Frank Meeuwsen

I enjoyed the previous books from Kleon so this was a no-brainer. As a dedicated follower of his blog and newsletter, I knew what to expect and I am not disappointed. This is a book with little quotes, nice insights, some counter-advice for all those online hucksters who want to make a buck out of your passion and hobby. It doesn't have to be a sidehustle! 
His sobering and down-to-earth stories work like peptalks for your creative mind. When you are grinding through your days like Phil Connors in Groundhog Day (it's a thing) just pick up this book and read any page. You'll feel better.
This is definitely one of those books I will give away as a present.

Keep Going 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad

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