A Literary Prescription for

Creativity

For the maker in you — whether you’re mid-flow, freshly blocked, or just trying to remember why you started.

Creativity isn’t a gift handed to a special few; it’s a way of paying attention, and a muscle that answers to practice. Whether you’re deep in a project, stuck at the blank page, or quietly longing to make something again, these books, poems and words are here to unblock, encourage, and remind you: the work matters, and so does the joy of it.

Books Poetry Quotes & Prose

Books

Prescribed reading

Companions for the making life — on craft, courage, resistance, and the sheer stubborn joy of bringing something into the world.

The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Rick Rubin · 2023

The legendary music producer’s meditation on creativity as a way of living, not a task to complete. Spacious, almost spiritual, it treats making art as something available to everyone, all the time. A book to steady and inspire you.

Bird by Bird

Anne Lamott · 1994

The warmest, funniest, truest book on writing (and making anything) there is. Lamott’s advice — take it ‘bird by bird’, allow yourself terrible first drafts — frees you from the perfectionism that kills more work than failure ever does.

The Artist’s Way

Julia Cameron · 1992

The classic twelve-week programme for unblocking creativity, and still the best. Cameron’s ‘morning pages’ and gentle exercises have helped countless people recover a creative life they thought they’d lost. Practical and quietly transformative.

Steal Like an Artist

Austin Kleon · 2012

A short, punchy permission slip of a book: nothing is wholly original, so gather what you love and make it yours. Perfect for anyone frozen by the pressure to be original — it gets you unstuck and making again fast.

Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke · 1929

Rilke’s tender letters to a would-be poet remain the most beautiful advice ever given to anyone who makes things: go inward, be patient, live the questions. Read slowly, a letter at a time, when you need to reconnect with why you create.

Just Kids

Patti Smith · 2010

Smith’s luminous memoir of becoming an artist alongside Robert Mapplethorpe in gritty 1970s New York. A love letter to devotion, friendship and the fierce commitment the creative life asks — and gives back. Utterly inspiring.

Poems about creativity

For when prose is not enough

Poems for the maker’s heart — on the calling to create, the craft of it, and making for love rather than applause.

“Ode (‘We are the music makers’)”

Arthur O’Shaughnessy, 1873

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams…
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

The original anthem of everyone who makes things. O’Shaughnessy insists that dreamers and artists — not armies — are the ones who actually shape the world. Read it when you need reminding that your making matters.

Find poetry prints →

“Digging”

Seamus Heaney, from ‘Digging’

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.

Heaney watches his father and grandfather dig turf and potatoes, and finds his own tool — the pen. A grounding poem about honouring your craft as real, worthy work, whatever form it takes.

Find poetry prints →

“In My Craft or Sullen Art”

Dylan Thomas, from ‘In My Craft or Sullen Art’

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night…

Thomas writes that he labours at his craft not for ambition or bread but for love alone — for ordinary lovers who will never read a word of it. A poem about making for its own sake, the truest reason there is.

Find poetry prints →

Quotes & Prose

Quotes about creativity to keep

Words for the making — on where ideas come from, why the work is worth it, and giving yourself permission to begin.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

Pablo Picasso

Get this quote as a print →

If there is a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

Toni Morrison

Get this quote as a print →

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.

Kurt Vonnegut

Get this quote as a print →

I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way.

Georgia O’Keeffe

Get this quote as a print →

Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it.

Sylvia Plath

Get this quote as a print →

Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

Get this quote as a print →

From Georgia

Pause here, if you need to

Making needs rest and refilling too. Before you return to the work, take a moment to settle, refocus, and loosen the grip of getting it perfect.

Build Focus: A Guided Concentration Practice

Guided meditation by Georgia Clare · Insight Timer

A short practice for settling a scattered mind and finding the quiet, steady focus that creative work asks of you.

Listen Now For Free

Letting Go of Perfectionism

Guided meditation by Georgia Clare · Insight Timer

A meditation for loosening the grip of ‘not good enough’ — making room to create, and to live, a little more freely.

Listen Now For Free

You Can’t Build a Future You Can’t Imagine

Personal essay by Georgia Clare · The Library

A reflection on using imagination as the very first tool of any real change — you have to picture it before you can build it.

Read the Essay →

The 21-Day Meditation Course

Guided Meditation Course · Georgia Clare

Three weeks of short, guided meditations to help you build a calm, steady daily practice — gently softening how you meet stress, anxiety and overwhelm, one day at a time.

Start the 21-Day Course →

Questions people ask

Reading for Creativity

Where should I start?

If you’re blocked, start with Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott or Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon — both get you making again fast. For something deeper and steadier, Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act is a slow, spacious read. And O’Shaughnessy’s ‘We are the music makers’ below is a one-minute jolt of encouragement.

What should I read when I’m creatively blocked?

Reach for the short forms first — a poem like Heaney’s ‘Digging’, or a line like ‘Build your wings on the way down’, can loosen the block faster than a whole book. Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, above, is the classic if you want a full course out of it.

What are some good quotes about creativity?

Lines worth keeping include “Every child is an artist; the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up” (Pablo Picasso), “If there is a book you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it” (Toni Morrison) and “Build your wings on the way down” (Ray Bradbury). More are in the quotes section above.

What can reading give me when I’ve lost my creative spark?

Permission, mostly — and the company of people who’ve been blocked, terrified and full of doubt, and made the work anyway. The right book reminds you that resistance is normal, that perfection is the enemy, and that the only way back is to begin badly and keep going.

Creativity

Prescribed reading

For when prose is not enough

Quotes about creativity to keep

Pause here, if you need to

Reading for Creativity

Where should I start?

What should I read when I’m creatively blocked?

What are some good quotes about creativity?

What can reading give me when I’ve lost my creative spark?

More prescriptions await.