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Habeeb Shaik Khadar's avatar

The way charts are used to illustrate each section is awesome! Coffee colour used to talk about caffeine impact and others...

Samyak's avatar

Such an inspiring piece, I think should read more children's books

Marina's avatar
5dEdited

Congratulations on the book and love the charts, specially the one that has advice from the Beatles. I will probably be printing that one to have it over my desk!

Also, will the book be coming out in Spanish?

Michelle Rial's avatar

Thank you! I'd love for the book to come out in Spanish and have thought of a few rhyme translations that could work on my own, but have to wait on a publisher to acquire it :)

Some of the charts in this post are available here https://buyolympia.com/Artist/Michelle+Rial as prints, and they also carry the children's book, and one of my adult books. Thanks for reading!

Danielle Satterwhite's avatar

Congratulations on Charts for Babies Michelle, I love seeing Durhamites doing big things! Just got my copy. And Lenny, lucky you.

Michelle Rial's avatar

Thank you so much, Danielle! And back atcha!!!

Mark S. Carroll's avatar

What I like here is that this does not try to clean creative blockage up into something neat, noble, or easily optimized. It meets the problem where a lot of us actually experience it, which is in the mess: embarrassment, futility, repetition, self-consciousness, and the awful suspicion that maybe you do not have anything original left to say.

Reading this, I kept thinking about Chris Cornell and “Drawing Flies.” I have always associated that song with writer’s block, especially the irritated kind, where you are not just stuck but sick of your own habits, conventions, and creative crutches. That feeling of hearing yourself reach for the same move again and suddenly not trusting it anymore. This piece gets closer to that truth than a lot of advice on creativity does.

I also think “be OK with being embarrassing” is probably the sharpest advice in the whole thing. A lot of creative paralysis is the impossible attempt to make something vulnerable without ever looking foolish in the process.

Really lovely piece. Playful on the surface, but honest about the uglier emotional weather underneath creating.

Juan P's avatar

Thank you for sharing these today. I really needed that this morning. I love how you express complex ideas in such a simple, engaging, and light way. I can only imagine how many thoughts you work through before finding that clarity :)

Michelle Rial's avatar

Thank you! I have been thinking of sharing some progress sketches for some of these. And yes, lots of thoughts, lots of things scrapped :)

Juan P's avatar

Yeah good idea this would show the behind-the-scenes work that goes into getting the final graph. Reminds me of Paul Rand's saying, "Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated"