You won't need to beg, not likely, though I wouldn't entirely rule it out. Don't be too proud to beg if you think that would work.

The first time I saw this book I passed on it. I thought it was just another book talking about stuff I knew when I was a kid in school. The ABC's of creativity with a finger painting lesson on the side. Later, when I read a blog post from someone, I actually picked it up and flipped through the pages at the bookstore. Still, wasn't so impressed with a book which was kind of hand drawn looking versus actual type and content. So I didn't buy it that time either. I did finally get my copy of the book the third time I saw it.

Don't Exclude Yourself from your own Creativity and Art

I bought the book because it said #3 Write the book you want to read. I was feeling so burnt out and frustrated with trying to write and not getting anywhere and not being happy about anything I was doing. I was trying too hard to listen to what everyone said I should do. I forgot myself in my own creativity.

Austin Kleon's book, Steal Like an Artist, is about being creative any way you can and in some ways you hadn't thought you would try. It's about taking your creativity, dusting it off, giving it a shake and actually taking it out of the plastic packaging - even though it won't ever be as pristine and collectible again. Creativity should not be pristine or perfect, or too tidy either. Get messy. Try something adventurous. Don't be afraid to steal something and make it your own, not literally.

Of course there is still a line you do not cross. Anything you take from another artist (of whatever form or genre) has to be your inspiration, not something you duplicate and then stick your own name onto. Taking credit for something you didn't add anything to (other than cut and pasting) is not being creative.

Being creative is about your own vision, your own version and how you see things and put them together in your own way. Each of us has a different way of looking at the same thing. Like the blind men describing an elephant, we all see the whole from our own smaller, focused perception.

You could stand a hundred artists in a row and have them all look at the same city skyline or sunset or forest (etc.) and each of them would create an image of their own. No two people see the same thing, in the same way. Think of playing telephone as a kid. The more people who repeated the message the more garbled and confused it became. Art is like that. Not that it become garbled but it is all filtered through different minds, different experiences and different knowledge and skill.

Art is Everything

Don't think an artist is just someone who works with images either. That is selling short. Art is such a huge area: words, buildings... what noun can you not find an art form for, somehow and in some way?