Three words to improve any skill: Imitate, then innovate.

Find your favorite creators, copy their style, and you'll eventually develop your own.

Here's my mini-essay.

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This is a wonderful mini-essay from @julian.

Start with a weak imitation of somebody you admire, identify what makes your imitation weak, and iterate on the imitation until it's original.

Here’s Ed Sheehan: Your early writing will be like dirty water, but the more you write, the cleaner your “creative water” will be.

(h/t @julian)

Ryan Holiday imitates books when he writes and uses quotes as a touchstone to guide his style.

Imitate, then innovate.

Casey Neistat will forever be my favorite YouTuber. For years, I thought his style was 100% original. Then I realized that he was bringing Wes Anderson's aesthetic onto the small screen. That's why @Casey has so many exaggerated zooms, symmetrical shots, and beautiful colors.

This is a lovely collection of quotes from @AliAbdaal.

1) "The only art I'll ever study is stuff that I can steal from." — David Bowie

2) "If we're free from the burden of trying to make something completely original... we can embrace influence instead of running away from it."

Even David Foster Wallace, one of the best writers of the 20th century, borrowed scenes from writers he admired and repurposed them in his own work. Then, he made them better.

Here’s an interview with his biographer.

Ira Glass called this "The Taste Gap."

He talks about how people who do creative work get into it because they have good taste. That's another way of saying they're inspired by people they want to imitate. But turning imitation into excellence takes time. https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1358119365435142147?s=20

“No man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”

— C.S. Lewis https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1169985284148269057?s=20

Desperate artists have historically turned to mysticism and prayer in an attempt to find creative ideas.

Here’s my YouTube video:

Ironically, the more we imitate others, the more we discover how we’re different. Conan O'Brien said it best: “It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.”

Here's the full video: