My Creative Manifesto 🎨

Have a listen to my narration if you like an audio experience! Introduction 📕 You’ve caught me in the messy middle. I’ve self-published two books, and my creative vision is still coming to fruition. I’m currently broke, yet when it comes to building a creative life, this is what I have faith in. This is what I believe. I grew up in London, in an environment where nothing really mattered except being academically gifted in serious subjects like science and business, and making lots of money. I believed that in order to make that money, you had to dedicate your life to something you hated. The more you hated your life, the more money you’d probably make. This has never been my approach to life. In my mind, I’ve never separated work, life, and pleasure. Despite evil corporate forces and societal expectations, I’ve found and dedicated myself to things I deeply care about. Not because I believe that I’m special (though I’m sure ego has something to do with it). But more because, for better or worse, I’ve been guided by feelings. For example, I’m enjoying writing for you right now. Let me do more of it. I like this piece of art, the design of this thing, or the look of that architecture. It’s pretty. It’s nice. Pure, basic aesthetics are what drive me. In this manifesto, I push through the frankly toxic beliefs of my childhood and move into a world of feelings, self-expression, and pretty things, while also making a living. To do this, I’ve brought together data, philosophies of new role models, and “alternative facts” (lol). This is not a dream. This is not a rehearsal dinner for the wedding of life. I’ve reconstructed a way to live that centers joy as something to be taken seriously, where you can make money, and potentially lots of it, doing something you absolutely love. I’ve written this for you because I believe that how we see the world changes what we believe is possible for us. Feel free to tell me I’m full of s**t in the comments. Let’s begin. Subscribe to see whether I make it or not professionally, lol 😅 1. Make stuff. 🔨 The words I hate to hear most out of someone’s mouth are: “I’ve always wanted to…but…” Come on, people! It’s the 21st century, and climate change is about to burn us all to a crisp. Do not tell me about your ideas and dreams you have no intention of pursuing. Do not be like that woman in her 60s, whom I met at a sushi dinner party, who always dreamt of becoming a sitcom screenwriter. Wtf is wrong with you? Sit down right now and write the first word. There is nothing stopping you. Dreams are not real, just a fantasy that will die with you. You actually have to start somewhere and make stuff. I don’t care if you write really slowly. I don’t care if what you start creating is literal crap. Just make something. Start with one brush stroke or write one word on the page, and make it real. Then you’ll have something to work with. The only exception is if you are a mother with young children under 5. Everyone else, no excuses. As Anne Lamott said: “[A] lot of my workshops involve people explaining to me that they’re going to start writing as soon as their last child is out of the house, as soon as they move to the Russian River, as soon as they retire…if you’re not writing now, you’re not gonna write then…The key is not to try harder, but to resist less.” 2. Replace your idols. 🧿 Despite the core philosophy of depressed money-making in my childhood, there was one quirky side character whom I’ve tried to bring to the center stage. Sir Paul Smith is a legendary British menswear fashion designer. I grew up a privileged little tot, and at one point in 2012, I found out that he lived on my street, in a large house on the corner covered with purple wisteria. It was a very dark, empty, and mysterious place because I later learned that Paul leaves at 5am every day to go swimming, and I imagine his wife, Pauline, does too. I was on the committee of a lecture society at my fancy school, and so I wrote Sir Paul Smith a handwritten letter inviting him to speak. I got an email from one of his assistants not long after, and he accepted the invitation! She later told me that Paul had never really used a computer, so a handwritten note was really the only way to get his attention. The day Sir Paul Smith came to speak at my school, I introduced him to a crowd of 400 curious teenagers. One thing that stood out from his talk was that he showed a picture of a row of beach houses he saw in the UK, and then a new suit and pair of socks with their color palette translated straight onto them. He also threw keychains across the room to students who asked questions in the Q&A. It was awesome, and we later toured his studio in Covent Garden. Sir Paul Smith made an impression on me. To this day, I regularly think of his words at the beginning of his interview on the Blamo! Podcast, “And I thought: I wonder if you can go earn a living doing something that’s creative like this. It could be a brilliant way of earning a living. And it just progressed from there.” I keep a little chromatic blue dog on my desk. It’s a miniature of one that I couldn’t afford to buy at Paul Smith’s shop in Notting Hill. But it reminds me that making money isn’t all grind and pain. It can be fun, and even inspired by a colorful row of beach houses. 3. F**k the gatekeepers. 🙉 “While the artist’s goal is greatness, it’s also to move forward. In service of the next project, we finish the current one. In service of the current project, we finish it so it can be set free into the world.” — Rick Rubin, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being” Putting a piece of creative work out into the world is a vulnerable thing to do. If we don’t have a ton of creative experience, it’s natural to want validation from some industry leader or accomplished person. We may anxiously proofread our email to them 100 times before we send it. What if they say no, or worse, don’t respond at all? Who will we be then? Rejection of your work from a gatekeeper might feel like the end of your world, but I’d argue that it’s just the beginning. It doesn’t matter if it’s one gatekeeper or 10; it means nothing. So what if Sarah, the New York literary agent you really wanted, probably hungover in the Hamptons, emailed you to say “Thank you for the chance to read your work, but it’s not a fit.” You spent fifteen years writing that novel (in my case) and put real effort into making something awesome. F**k it! A piece of work you put a lot of effort into is probably good, and your effort alone is enough of a reason for it to see the light of day. It deserves to arrive in its final state of completion: birthed, published, shown, seen, witnessed. You need to finish this piece so that you can start making something else. I spent years and years writing my debut novel, queried a metric s**t ton of literary agents, and got all rejections. My inner teenager needed “These Perfectly Careless Things” to be published, but I wanted to work on other things. I decided to self-publish it. Even if it wasn’t perfect. Even if I never quite got the marketing right for that book. But I did it. Here I am, free on the other side, to make more work. I haven’t sat around for another 3 years waiting for a traditional publishing deal and fantasizing about becoming an author, because I already am one. Of course, I would have loved to have a big publishing deal, lots of money, and millions of copies sold. Maybe if I had been patient for six more months and then waited another two years for the book to be published, I’d be as rich and famous as Sally Rooney or Dolly Alderton. But also, more likely, I wouldn’t be. I might have gotten discouraged and traipsed back to New York to my horrible corporate life again with my tail between my legs. Most creative careers are built through teeny, tiny actions to no fanfare or clapping audience. Maybe a few people will clap for you, and a few people will email you to say how much they loved your work. But ultimately, wa… Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe