15 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Elizabeth Gilbert's 2015 meditation on creative living — arguing that ideas are entities seeking human collaborators, that fear is inevitable in creative work but shouldn't be in the driver's seat, and that creativity should be pursued for its own sake rather than for career or validation.
Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace's 2014 account of how Pixar built a creative organization — covering the Braintrust, the dailies process, the principle of 'be wrong as fast as you can,' and the specific mechanisms for maintaining a candid, high-trust creative culture.
Ed Catmull's 2014 book about building and maintaining Pixar's creative culture — from the founding through Toy Story, the Disney acquisition, and beyond — structured as a manual for how to manage creative people without killing their creativity.
Mason Currey's 2013 compendium — cataloguing the daily routines of 161 artists, writers, composers, scientists, and philosophers — revealing patterns in how creative people structure their working lives.
Guatemalan-American pastor, author, and founder of Mosaic Church in Los Angeles — whose books on creativity, courage, and identity attract both religious and secular audiences — particularly known in the entertainment and creative community.
Paul Graham's 2023 essay synthesizing his thinking on how to do great work — covering how to choose what to work on, how to maintain motivation, how to develop taste, and the role of curiosity and hard work in producing significant output.
American actor and filmmaker — Third Rock from the Sun (childhood), Inception, 500 Days of Summer, The Dark Knight Rises — founder of HitRECord (collaborative creative platform) — who has parlayed an acting career into a broader engagement with internet creativity.
American writer — author of Daily Rituals: How Artists Work — who catalogued the daily routines of hundreds of artists, writers, and scientists in a compulsively readable collection.
American psychiatrist who co-developed the Tools therapeutic framework with Barry Michels — a set of specific psychological exercises for overcoming resistance, pain, and self-limitation — and who became widely known through Jonah Hill's Netflix documentary Stutz.
American music producer — co-founder of Def Jam Records — who has produced albums for Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Jay-Z, and Kendrick Lamar — the most commercially successful and artistically diverse record producer in history — author of The Creative Act.
American author — of The War of Art, Gates of Fire, and Tides of War — who published his first novel at 52 after decades of struggle — whose concept of 'the Resistance' is the most useful single framework for creative procrastination.
Jesse Schell's 2008 textbook on game design — presenting 113 'lenses' (analytical perspectives) through which to analyze and improve games — the most comprehensive and widely used game design textbook.
Rick Rubin's 2023 meditation on creativity — presenting creativity as a spiritual practice of attention and openness rather than a technical skill — structured as 78 short chapters on aspects of the creative process.
Steven Pressfield's 2002 guide to overcoming creative procrastination — introducing the concept of 'the Resistance' (the internal force that prevents creative work) and 'turning pro' (the commitment to defeating it daily) — the most widely read book on creative discipline.
Paul Graham's essay arguing that great design — in code, art, or products — shares universal properties: simplicity, timelessness, suggestion rather than statement, and solving the right problem.