A Manuscript Between Two Desks

When Austin Kleon was deciding the order of the pieces in Newspaper Blackout, he first scanned them, then printed them out again on quarter sheets of paper. He moved the sheets around his office, arranged them in piles and assembled a stack. Only once the order was in front of him did he copy it back into the computer.

In Steal Like an Artist, this episode explains his workspace better than a general appeal to use our hands more often. Kleon does not simply put his laptop aside. He changes what he can do with the material: place one piece beside another, move it away, shift several at once. The book’s order becomes something he can handle physically.

A Different Job at Each Desk

Kleon describes two desks. One holds markers, pens, pencils, paper, index cards and newspapers. Electronics are not allowed there. The other has a laptop, monitor, scanner and drawing tablet. It is where he edits and publishes.

This division fits the history of the pieces themselves. For Newspaper Blackout, he made poems from newspaper articles using a permanent marker. He valued the paper in his hands and the sight of words disappearing beneath black lines. Later, the computer helped him gather the pieces, but arranging their order brought his hands back into the process. The book describes a recurring movement: hands, computer, hands, computer.

A tool therefore does not have to belong to the entire work once and for all. It serves a particular action. Laying out parts, choosing a sequence, refining the text and preparing it for publication are different tasks, even when we habitually perform them in a single window.

Keeping the Structure Unfinished

Kleon associates computer work with premature editing: it is easy to start correcting an idea before we have one. This is his explanation of his own process, not an established law about where people get ideas. The usefulness of the technique can be tested more modestly: did it help you see something you had missed in the material’s familiar form?

Imagine a Ukrainian-language manuscript with several sections. Instead of polishing it from the first sentence onwards, you could put each section’s job on a separate card: asking a question, presenting a case, explaining a cause, drawing a conclusion. Lay the cards out and try a different order. Perhaps an example belongs before its explanation. Perhaps two sections promise the same answer, while a gap remains between two others.

This is a hypothetical transfer of the technique, not a case from the book. It does not require buying a second desk or working exclusively on paper. The boundary is the task itself: during this attempt, change the order of the parts rather than their sentences. That makes it easier to notice whether familiar copy-editing is taking the place of structural work.

In the final chapter, Kleon recommends setting constraints: choosing the time, materials or range of possibilities available. For a manuscript, that constraint can be temporary. Find a sequence first. Then return to the complete text and check whether it survives the new order: a label on a card does not replace the paragraph itself.