Subtracting to Be Creative.

     According to Austin Kleon, author of Newspaper Blackout, creativity is subtraction. While many people worry about not being creative enough, creativity actually includes the act of being boring. While you be may adding more details to your paper to be more creative, perhaps less details is the way to go, because you decrease your chance of being repetitive.According to Kleon, being boring is actually the only way to get work done. This relates to the
phrase used by Austin Kleon, "Steal like an Artist." I believe that this phrase is used to inspire people to get general ideas from people and make it their own work by adding their own touch to it.
     Is blacking out newspapers or any other works boring? It can be quite fun actually, and yet creative. You can create your own quotes, whether it is inspirational or funny. One of my quotes, blacking out a few paragraphs from
"A Winter Storm Stay Bag" in the New York Times newspaper, is "In the quest for light, unattended fat raccoons use the fridge." It was meant to be funny, or rather a silly joke about raccoons in all due respect.
     Aside from being silly, I came up with an inspiring quote [to me] about criticism. I saw the word criticism in "In the N.H.L., Shanahan Is Enforcing
Rules with Gusto" by Jeff Z. Klein, and I just went with the flow from there. My quote is "Criticism helps change." While criticism may be hard to handle for some people, it is actually not a bad thing sometimes. Criticism, however, is
bad if one says something disrespectful to another's work. Aside from that, criticism can help one critique their work and make it better than it was before.
     Don't be afraid of criticism. If you are confident about your work, let it be.
If you feel strong and confident about your work, don't change it regardless of what others say. Always be confident in your work! Most importantly,
remember to be BORING, while still having fun!


-Angela Tong