What's Your Creative Type?: Harness the Power of Your Artistic Personality

by Meta Wagner

Overview

The greatest creators in human history -- from Mozart to Meryl Streep, Jackson Pollock to Jay-Z -- don't just have talent -- they also understand their motivations for pursuing art. What's Your Creative Type? helps artists do the same in a fun and witty way. Stepping away from the hyper-focus on how people create, What's Your Creative Type? instead explores why. By identifying your creative motivation type, you'll be able to find renewed energy, overcome creative blocks, and release the artist within.

Drawing from creativity theory and personality typology, each chapter of the book is devoted to a creative type, from the A-Lister seeking recognition to the Activist who wants to change the world. What's Your Creative Type? is peppered with pop-culture studies of famous artists and illustrates each type with entertaining examples from legendary figures.

Whether you're a seasoned artist or writer in search of inspiration or simply looking to explore your budding creative talents and motivations, What's Your Creative Type? has fresh and reliable advice and insight for you.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580056380
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	04/11/2017
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Meta Wagner writes about pop culture and has most notably been a contributor to the Boston Globe opinion pages and a columnist for PopMatters. Her commentary and feature articles have also appeared in the Huffington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Salon, Boston Globe Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal's custom content.

When she's not writing, Meta is molding young minds as an adjunct professor at Emerson College and Boston University. She developed and teaches a "cult favorite" seminar called "Creativity in Context" (the basis for this book) along with classes in creative non-fiction and communications writing. She has also taught at Wheelock College and Grub Street, Boston's largest independent writing center.

Meta was previously in executive positions in the marketing and public relations fields and received multiple awards from professional organizations. She received her undergraduate degree from Brown University and her MFA in creative writing from Emerson College, where she was chosen as the student commencement speaker.

Read an Excerpt

QUIZ: Are you an A-LISTER?

If you answer “yes” to most of the following questions, you are an A-Lister!

1. Do you fantasize about any of the following: being in the spotlight, a standing ovation and shouts of “bravo” or “brava,” amazing reviews, fangirls or boys, a million social media followers overnight, your own reality TV show, and/or boatloads of money?

2. Are you hoping to prove someone wrong that told you weren’t all that talented or you’d never make it as an artist or you can’t make money from art?

3. Do you long to create or perform something that will make people laugh out loud, sob uncontrollably, or feel forever changed?

4. Do you hope people will be talking about you and your work decades or even centuries from now?

5. Do you believe you have a God-given gift, and you ought to share it with the world?

6. Do you secretly like “playing God” by giving life to and controlling your creative work, or the lives of your fictional characters?

7. Are you most alive when you’re creating something or performing for people—and you simply can’t live without that “high”?

8. Do you have competitors or rivals (real or imagined) that you want to show you’re better than?

9. Do you want to turn yourself or your life into a self-portrait, memoir, or other form of art?

10. When you’re creating something, do you love the idea of the finished product even more than the joy you get from the creative process?