Honest Creativity
The Foundations of Boundless, Good, and Inspired Innovation
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
An essential guide for not only fostering genuine personal expression, but also the courage to share our most meaningful work with others—all without pretense or artifice.
Author, filmmaker, educator, cultural commentator, and Variety Mentor of the Year recipient Craig Detweiler has taught thousands how to launch creative projects with intention, awareness, and confidence. As a result, his students have founded festivals, started companies and schools, written acclaimed graphic novels, and directed movies for Marvel. Now, at a time when generative AI can aggregate text and images in seconds, Detweiler shows why “honest creativity” is one of the core tenets that separates humans from machines. Readers will learn, not only how to prioritize ideas, but also how to develop their own method for producing cohesive, whole, and enduring works; escaping comfort zones; and cultivating a like-minded community that both motivates and challenges. This groundbreaking approach promises to help creators turn problems into possibilities by first honing their ability to innovate and then preparing them to handle the feedback—both positive and negative—that is inevitable when private work is displayed in the public sphere. For Detweiler, creating honestly is a way of honoring the gift of life, and his transcendent guide shows us how we can excel in an act that is, fundamentally, both uniquely human and magnificently divine.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Creativity is "nurtured in silence, humility and practice," according to this impassioned outing from filmmaker Detweiler (iGods). Citing the limits of artificial intelligence, he makes clear that while the technology can "mechanize the imagination" by churning out pages of literature in the style of great writers, only humans exercise the type of creativity that makes space for vulnerability and failure—and thus originality. Detweiler guides readers through the creative process, from "rediscover a sense of play" in the "preparatory stage" to polishing work in "postproduction." Along the way, he cites biblical examples of divinely inspired creativity; discourages drug use as artistic fuel; and urges readers to seek inspiration in mundane experience, memories, and dreams (Paul McCartney composed "Yesterday" in his sleep, Detweiler notes, with the song emerging "so fully formed that McCartney didn't think he'd wrote it"). While his anti-AI protestations come across as defensive, Detweiler makes a convincing case for prizing experimentation over productivity, reminding readers to "set aside our script or agenda long enough to see and hear the bounty before us." Christian creatives will be buoyed.
