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Mighty Ugly
Make it Mighty Ugly.
Perfect is boring.
Creativity is messy, and that means every creative adventure involves loads of imperfection. And you know what? Imperfection is fascinating. Even though it’s uncomfortable (maybe because it’s uncomfortable). Mighty Ugly is a creativity exercise designed to make us less fearful of failing when we make stuff. Creative failures are how we learn, and everybody makes awful stuff now and then – especially first tries. The more we can be certain that we won’t die when we fail at making something, the more adventurous we’ll become, the more excited we’ll feel about our creativity, and the closer we’ll come to realizing our dream of being creative.
The Book
Make It Mighty Ugly: Exercises & Advice for Getting Creative Even When it Ain’t Pretty
This book is a handbook for vanquishing creative demons.
It’s filled with essays, exercises, anecdotes, links, quotes and a bibliography to help you fight the demons that keep you from being creative and making stuff. This is not a book of so-called “positive thinking.” Nope, it’s a book of “Oh man, life is really hard sometimes, and I’m not gonna pretend it’s easy, but I’m gonna freaking OWN IT. And I’m going to make stuff even if I think I can’t or I think my creations will suck or I think I’m not creative in the first place.”
Make It Mighty Ugly is out of print but you may be able to find a copy at
Your Local Library | Amazon | Kobo | Chapters
The Workshop
Host a Mighty Ugly workshop at your next conference, professional development day, festival or retreat. This workshop gets participants embracing the ugly side of creativity and working on crafting their own ugly doll from scraps of fabric, thread, buttons, beads, wires, and other odds and ends. It’s great for team-building, encouraging out-of-the-box thinking, and shaking loose new ways to approach problem solving.