THE HABIT OF NOTICING

Using Creativity to Make a Life (And A Living)

BY DARDEN SMITH

The concept of work-life balance is anything but foreign in today’s hyperconnected society, but what if finding the elusive balance lies not in tuning out, but instead bringing one more key element into our lives? In his new book The Habit of Noticing: Using Creativity to Make a Life (and a Living), slated for release on Thursday, September 13, at the Business Innovation Factory (BIF) Summit in Providence, R.I., Austin-based singer-songwriter Darden Smith says the secret lies in embracing and using your creativity every day.

Now, in his most adventurous and deeply personal project to date, The Habit of Noticing is Smith’s collection of stories that serves as a personal manifesto on the value of art and creativity in daily life. A guidebook for those seeking to bring more creativity into their daily life, Smith dives deep into his inspirations and influences, the importance of commitment and endurance in tough times, and the beauty that comes from finding meaning in your work and your life.

“From my experience, working artists are people with heart and passion; hard workers, self-starters, doers,” says Smith. “They wake up in the morning looking for a way to make a difference, to tell a story. They follow their words and dreams with action. They create.”

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Product Details

Publisher: Irie Books (August 21, 2018)
Length: 226 pages
ISBN: 9781515417170 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 9780998325385 (eBook)
ISBN: 9780998325392 (Audiobook)

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About the Author

DARDEN SMITH is a singer-songwriter based in Austin whose 30-year career redefines what it means to be a musician. In addition to 15 critically acclaimed albums, Smith continues to break new ground using the craft of songwriting in education, entrepreneurship, and in service to others. He is the founder and creative director of SongwritingWith:Soldiers, a nonprofit that pairs award-winning songwriters with veterans and service members in retreat settings to craft songs about combat and the return home. Darden lives with his wife in Austin, TX. The Habit of Noticing was his first book, he is also the author of Western Skies.

Reviews and Endorsements

Praise for Western Skies

“Intimate and personal.”

―Chanticleer Book Reviews, 5 Stars

“This multi-front production by one of Texas’s great songwriters feels not only urgent, but authentic, as if the songs, poems, essays and photographs gathered here were things that could no longer be withheld. They blur into each other in the richest possible way, erasing genres and leaving only a singular voice that demands to be heard.”

– Stephen Harrigan, Author of the New York Times best-selling novel, The Gates of the Alamo and writer for Texas Monthly magazine

“What a lovely, lovely, evocative piece of work. Maybe because of this pandemic my heart breaks more easily than it used to, but some of this is flat heartbreaking. Darden Smith is doing many things here. One of them is conjuring that hard, wild, beautiful, tragic thing called Texas that we all mostly love.”

– S.C. Gwynne, Pulitzer finalist and New York Times best-selling author of Empire of the Summer Moon

“Sometimes a story requires more than one discipline to get itself told. It’s a lucky thing that Western Skies found multi-hyphenate artist Darden Smith and he was up for the job, for he gracefully ushers it into our consciousness with his wonderful ability to notice, question, and show. This is a beautiful project full of shadow and revelation, tenderly shaped into a meditation on what fills the space that exists both within us and around us.”

– Allison Moorer, Songwriter and Author

“Darden Smith’s new multi-media project Western Skies is big, bold, and beautiful. With perception and vision, an artist’s job is to help us all to see more, and to see better. Western Skies does exactly that, it helps us to see these West Texas landscapes through the loving eyes of the artist. There is plenty of love in Darden’s new work, and as a result, we are given the chance to see and to love as well. Well done my friend, well done.”

– Mary Gauthier

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