Rules for Mavericks: A Manifesto for Dissident Creatives
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Author: Phil Beadle
Publisher: Crown House Publishing
Paperback:
ISBN 10: 1785831135
ISBN 13: 978-1785831133
Rules for Mavericks: A Manifesto for Dissident Creatives by Phil Beadle is a guidebook to leading a creative life, to being a renaissance dilettante, to infesting your art form with other art forms, to taking a stand against mediocrity, to rejecting bloodless orthodoxies, to embracing your own pretension and, most of all, to dealing with your failure(s).
If you make any stand against power, then power will stand against and on you. And it will do so with centuries of experience and techniques in how to do so effectively: you will be painted as barbaric, dismissed as stupid and insane, be told to know your place. Most of all, you will be termed maverick.
This genre-flouting manifesto is written by someone who has achieved and has failed in more than one field. As a Guardian columnist, award-winning teacher, award-winning broadcaster, author, editor, singer, songwriter, producer and public speaker, Phil Beadle knows a bit about leading a life producing good work across a variety of platforms. In this elegantly written book he glides and riffs around the idea of maverick nature, examines the processes of producing good work in creative fields and broaches the techniques that orthodoxies use to silence dissident voices. It is a how to dream book, a how to create book, a how to work book and a how to fail productively book; it is an examination of the many accusations that any dissident creative will face over a long career stirring things up, a guide to dealing with these with grace and a study in how to make creativity work for you.
Rules for Mavericks is for anyone who wants to live and work more creatively and successfully.
Review
Rules for Mavericks is irreverent, stimulating and absorbing. There s a mixture of humour and wisdom on every page. It s an insight into how thinking like a maverick can have practical benefits. Phil Beadle writes in a way that is personal and therefore easy to relate to. He demonstrates how deciding to think and behave like a maverick can change your work and personal life for the better. --Rod Judkins, author of The Art of Creative Thinking
Voices in the wilderness are seldom heard with clarity. This book is the exception. Mavericks can t be made, but they can be given the space and support to fly in the face of conformity with alacrity. Phil Beadle wears the badge conferred on him with uncomfortable reticence, but delivers a message in tune with his original thinking, emphasising the importance of straying from the flock whilst hiding in full sight of the wolves. Sometimes controversial, but never less than eye-opening and thought-provoking, which is what any self-respecting moderate demands of their mavericks. As society careers towards ever-narrowing options in a disenfranchised democracy designed to govern from the top down, polemicists become ever more important voices: a rule book for railing against the top might just be the most useful tool of all. Read it and build with it. --Pete Wilkinson, Director, The Jerwood Space
Rules for Mavericks is a unique and compelling read, packed with guidance for the less maverick amongst us. Reflecting on his own experiences and the experiences of other creative non-conformists (from Christopher Hitchens to Joni Mitchell via David Bowie) Phil Beadle provides us with strategies for improving creative output, for challenging authority, for fighting the good fight when things get tough and for learning from the many inevitable mistakes we will make in the days and years ahead. Unconventional and inspiring, Rules for Mavericks may just give you the courage you need to shrug off convention and release your inner dissident. --Bob Pritchard, teacher, Hilbre High School
About the Author
Phil Beadle knows a bit about bringing creative projects to fruit. His self-described renaissance dilettantism is best summed up by Mojo magazine s description of him as a burnished voice soul man and left wing educationalist . He is the author of ten books on a variety of subjects, including the acclaimed Dancing About Architecture, described in Brain Pickings as a strong, pointed conceptual vision for the nature and origin of creativity . As songwriter Philip Kane, his work has been described in Uncut magazine as having novelistic range and ambition and in Mojo as having a rare ability to find romance in the dirt along with bleakly literate lyricism . He has won national awards for both teaching and broadcasting, was a columnist for the Guardian newspaper for nine years and has further written for every broadsheet newspaper in the UK, as well as the Sydney Morning Herald. Phil is also one of the most experienced, gifted and funniest public speakers in the UK.
