EVERY TOOL IS A HAMMER, by Adam Savage

On random impulse, I got EVERY TOOL IS A HAMMER by Adam Savage from the local library.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, since I don’t really have any interest in making physical objects.

However, it was an interesting meditation on the creative process. Two points in the book really stuck out for me.

The first was the idea of creative obsession, where if you want to get really good at something, you have to be at least a little obsessed with it. I definitely understand that. I first tried to write a novel in 1997, and I’ve been doing it ever since. Closely tied to that was the idea of iteration, that even if you fail at something, you’ve learned something from it so the experience wasn’t wasted. I can also relate to that – I’ve published 101 novels, but with occasional exceptions, most of my writing projects from 1997 to about 2011 failed in some way. But everything I learned in the process enabled me to develop the skills that let me self-publish 101 novels.

The second point was the idea of the skill stack, which is a concept Scott Adams talks about in his book HOW TO FAIL AT ALMOST EVERYTHING AND STILL WIN BIG. The idea is that you don’t have to be excellent at any one thing. Rather, you can be mediocre at a bunch of different things and combine them into something excellent. In EVERY TOOL IS A HAMMER, Mr. Savage writes about how he tends to learn a new skill to “proficiency” and then move on to something new, but that has let him combine those skills to tackle challenges he couldn’t have resolved in his younger days. I’ve found that to be definitely true in self-publishing – I would rate myself as “acceptable” at a bunch of different skills, but I can combine them to good effect.

So, if you’re interested in the creative process in any field, EVERY TOOL IS A HAMMER is well worth the read.

There’s also a very detailed chapter about the pros and cons of different kinds of glue. 🙂

-JM