You're listening to the Beautiful Mazz podcast, your cozy comfort listen.

I'm your host, Emma Chapman.

And I'm your host, Elsie Larson.

And this week, we're talking about how to develop your creative palette and style without

being derivative.

This is a subject that applies across different creative practices from art to writing and even how you dress or decorate your home.

And also at the end of the episode, we're going to have a book report.

Yes.

This entire episode is based around a wonderful listener question.

It is from Haley, so I'm going to read it to get us started.

She says, I always want to be creative and love making art.

I get frustrated though because I seem to be stuck in a loop of seeing something I like on

Pinterest and then recreating it. I feel like I can't figure out how to make something original.

When I see something I like on Pinterest, I can't get it

on my head and I just remake it. How do you gather inspiration without imitation? So I love this

subject. Yeah. I think that it's so interesting and I do think it's like a very common

challenge in like early development of any kind of creative process.

Like no one wants to be derivative.

Like no one has to be a copycat.

But in this episode, we're going to make the case why you kind of have to.

It's a stepping stone to get where you want to go.

It's not where you're going to end.

...