"Creative, Not Famous" - A Reaction

 

    Ooh, copy-pasting an image works!  Sweet!

    *ahem*

    Right, so I'm calling this a "reaction" rather than a "review," because a review ought to be more thorough and stuff.

    Creative, Not Famous:  The Small Potato Manifesto by Ayun Halliday is...actually, let me quote the Kickstarter page, so I won't make a hash of explaining what it is.  (Ugh, pun totally not intended...)

What is a small potato? They're someone whose focus is making cool, meaningful work and living a creative life rather than achieving wealth or celebrity! This book is from small potatoes to small potatoes. 

Inside you’ll find:

• Quotes and advice from 37 creative small potato just like you, including actors, artists, writers, comedians, clowns, musicians, photographers, videographers, mimes, singers, cartoonists, zinesters, and more
• The kind of friendly, collegial wisdom, encouragement, and practical advice that soothes your soul as you try to make art and pay the bills
• A manifesto for small potatoes that builds as you read
• Adorable potato illustrations!

    So, yeah, there you have it.  It's both about the lifestyle and attitude towards your own art you have to have if you're a small potato, but it's also advice about how to live that life, and without having to sacrifice everything else in your life.

    A lot of it's geared towards the performative arts (including playwrights), and most of the rest is about visual artists, so a lot of it didn't really connect for me.  But it was still entertaining, and there was a lot of information that was useful, too.

    ...

    Y'know, I felt like I had more to say than that.

    ...

    Ugh.  I've been away from this too long; I don't remember how to write a book review. 😩

    .....

    Oh well, I guess I'll just get to the one idiotic thing I really wanted to say.

    The whole time I was reading this book, I was suffering from...well, for most of the time, I couldn't figure out what the problem was.  I was like "this seems like food poisoning, but I haven't had meat for a couple of days, so it can't be food poisoning!"

    Then this morning--the same morning I finished reading this--I realized what it was.  It really was food poisoning...caused by under-cooked potatoes.

    The irony is almost palpable, y'know?