#make your thing

Here is every single page of Kill Six Billion Demons.

It represents about 1300+ hours of work.

If you’re thinking of making comics, music, podcasts, fashion, or some other kind of similar art , just remember, no matter who you are or what you are doing, you can (and should!) 100% absolutely positively make your thing.

Two and a half years ago I was sitting in a coffee shop really dissatisfied with my art and thinking about this story I had, with 0 pages drawn. That was me. I was that person. Now I have this ridiculous thing. I drew about 70% of it a page a week while working a regular 40 hour workweek and living in a foreign country. The most recent stuff I’ve been able to draw through the absolute majesty and support of the internet.

Make your thing.

I know you have a thing. I know it’s in there. GO MAKE IT. MAKE IT! The internet exists. Crowd funding exists. An audience exists for your thing. There are people making things RIGHT NOW that are WORSE than the thing you are going to make.

Stop not making your thing. Stop planning it. Stop talking about it. That’s not making it. That’s not creation in motion, which is the most glorious thing in the world. Shoot a hole in the god damn moon.

I’m going to make a god damn hilarious sounding word up right now. Just go make your thing!

Today's Worth Stealing is Jesse Thorn's "Make Your Thing" manifesto. 

Jesse Thorn is a radio/podcast host and producer. He founded and heads up the Maximum Fun network. He's also responsible for a website and web series about men's fashion called Put This On. And, for someone I've met only once in my life, he's had an outsized impact on my life. 

I consume a lot of the things Jesse Thorn makes or has a hand in making. He contributed heavily to my love of listening to podcasts, he helped me think I could teach myself how to interview guests, he gave me permission to dress like an adult man, and his words and attitude about creativity and work had and continues to have a tremendous impact on what I do. He's even influenced my fight against keeping an ironic distance from things I like.

In April of 2012 I had already been making a comedy podcast but I had this idea for a show where I would interview my comedy friends who had kids. I'd had the idea for some time and I was really excited about it but I kept talking myself out of it. I wasn't an interviewer, no one would want to listen, no one would want to be a guest. There are a million reasons not to do a thing and I'm incredibly creative and skilled and thinking them up.

But then this guy who made podcasts I liked shared something called "Make Your Thing." It was and is very nakedly a manifesto telling you how to make good things and how to create ways for those good things to be successful. 

Jesse's "Make Your Thing" is full of advice and examples of how to harness your creative ideas, how to make them happen, and perhaps more importantly why to make them happen. There are stories of unlikely success. There are unlikely sources of inspiration. It somehow sits at the intersection of wild ambition and grounded pragmatism. Which, it turns out, is exactly where I want to be when making work and living life.

I don't just love this manifesto because it's green-lit so much of the things I've done in the past two years. I also love because it sets a great example of how much power and strength there is in sharing your ideas and taking ideas from other people. "Make Your Thing" is pro stealing of good ideas in the best way possible. We should all read it, re-read it, and then go make something awesome.

Our friends at Maximum Fun are running a Kickstarter campaign for a cool conference this fall in Los Angeles. Make Your Thing is a conference for independent creative people of every stripe. Learn something from the speakers, sell your wares at the bazaar, and party down with other folks on their creative grind.

Comics superstar Kate Beaton is among the scheduled speakers, who also include Ayesha Siddiqi, Chris Gethard, and Colt Cabana (!). 

Even if you can't attend, a $100 pledge gets you a t-shirt and access to videos of the talks--that's an amazing value. That earns you an associate's degree in Making Your Thing.