Keep Going

Kleon's short, illustrated collection of essays addresses a problem he sees as distinct from the challenge of starting creative work: the much harder, longer-term challenge of sustaining a creative practice across years and decades, especially through difficult periods marked by world events, personal setbacks, or simple burnout. He organizes his advice around ten broad principles — including building a daily routine, forgetting the noun and focusing on the verb, and building a bliss station — each treated briefly but pointedly, drawing on examples from working artists, writers, and musicians who maintained productive creative lives despite adversity, distraction, or lack of external validation.

The book matters because it explicitly rejects the popular myth that creativity depends on constant inspiration or dramatic breakthrough moments, replacing it with an emphasis on unglamorous structural habits — regular routines, boundaries around media consumption, physical movement, and keeping a work journal — as the actual determinants of a sustained creative life. It positions creative endurance, not creative talent, as the real long-term differentiator between people who make things and people who merely intend to.

Who should read it

Working artists, writers, and creative professionals experiencing burnout, distraction, or doubt about continuing their practice will find this a quick, practical companion. It particularly suits readers already familiar with Kleon's earlier, related work who want guidance for the harder, later stages of a creative career.

About the author

Austin Kleon is an American writer and artist known for his "newspaper blackout" poems and bestselling books on creativity. Keep Going, published in 2019, forms the third installment in a loose trilogy alongside Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work.