Craft Advice from Austin Kleon
On seasonal writing habits, the realness of typing, the importance of (four!) notebooks, the wonder of Apple Notes, and self authorization. Plus: A writing prompt!
Intimate conversations with our greatest heart-centered minds.
knows a thing or two or ten about writing. For one thing, he’s written three bestselling books about it: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work, and Keep Going. For another, his wildly popular newsletter, , is geared toward inspiring readers to create. And for another, he exudes this effortless writing wisdom. So it was with great pleasure, I spoke with Austin about his writing process. I learned a lot! I think you will, too! Enjoy!
If you missed last week’s conversation with Austin, you can check it out here.
xJane
Where do you write?
I write primarily in my studio, which is where I am right now. It's about twenty to thirty feet from the back of the house. I built this two years ago specifically for this yard. I have a big picture window and I look out onto my backyard and my pool is there and I can see my owl boxes from here.
One of the things that changed my working life that seems extremely shallow but has been really great is I bought a beautiful Mac studio display monitor that is more expensive than my bicycle or anything really in my life other than maybe a car. It’s changed everything because I have this beautiful bright display that I love working on and then this 360 view. It’s a really great place to work.
I will say, though, I do a lot of my best thinking and writing at the kitchen table in the morning over coffee. The kitchen table is magic. My feeling is that you should be able to do surgery on your kitchen table. It should be substantial enough that you can lay a full-grown person on there and operate on them. We live in a little bungalow, but we have this gigantic farmhouse kitchen table that we all sit at and I have my little battle station there.
When you're writing at the kitchen table, is your family there? Or do you need to be alone?