Review of Creative, Not Famous by Ayun Halliday
I recently got a big stack of writing craft and creativity books through a Microcosm Publishing Kickstarter, so I’ve decided to work through several of them for reviewing on my blog.
Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto is a book that explores the very good possibility that as a creative person, you will not become wildly famous and/or successful. And that’s okay. Ayun Halliday and the many creatives she interviewed for this book all agree that there’s something nice about making a lot of money from your art, but that it also comes with some drawbacks. And in the end, maybe it’s better to be a “small potato.”
The book also creates a small potato manifesto, in which each of the elements of small potato-ness are added to a statement about why being creative, but not famous, is a worthwhile (and reasonable) goal for any sort of artist.
In the writing world, there are a lot of people held up as paragons of success, and many authors aspire to be as famous or successful or wealthy as some of these big names. But this book says “it’s okay to write because you love to write.” Success and fame are not for everyone. The pressure these “goals” can exert is enormous. And while recognition (and money, of course) is great, sometimes it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. This book handles this topic with humor and wisdom, and it’s a definitely must-read for anyone who wants to redefine what “success” is for them!
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