Dear creative students, Austin Kleon has some advice for you:

“The classroom is a wonderful, if artificial, place: your professor gets paid to pay attention to your ideas, and your classmates are paying to pay attention to your ideas.  Never again in your life will you have such a captive audience.”

While Kleon clearly articulates this passage for college creatives, his quote could easily be adapted for students of all ages.  But, he doesn’t mean it as a cold admonishment of how the how hard the “real world” is for artists.  Instead, it’s meant to be empowering.  The sooner you learn to create for you and not for anyone else (not even a teacher), the better (and more genuine) your work will be.  And, Kleon suggests, “you want attention only after you’re doing really good work.”

Steal Like an Artist includes 10 lessons for writers, painters, musicians, and other creative…