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Title: The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp ISBN: 0-7432-3526-6 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.86 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Best book on how to develop a creative practice
Comment: As a frequent consumer of self-help genre books, I had a fair amount of skepticism regarding this one. What could a dancer teach me? However, having read the entire book cover to cover while underlining key ideas, words, or phrases, I have to say this is probably the most practical and insightful book on the creative process that I have ever read. Kudos to Twyla for demystifying creativity. She demonstrates that while there is no substitute for talent (and perhaps the blessings of the gods), much of the creative process is about discipline, focus, dedication, rituals, and creating space for allowing your creative spirit to spring forth.
This is a book I will turn to again and again. Simply the best of its kind.
Rating: 5
Summary: Don't just sit there.
Comment: Create something new. This book describes how Tharp, and the intent reader, can amplify their creative energies and direct them into creative output. It is so effective that, just a few pages in, I had to put the book down to go back to some writing that had languished.
When I got back to the book, I enjoyed it immensely. If anyone thought for a moment that creativity is some little light that flips on when it will, they are seriously mistaken. Occasional, random flashes do not support a livelihood. The good news is that, whatever your field, creativity can be cultivated. Someone working hard enough and working the right way really can generate what is needed, on a reliable basis.
The process she describes is grueling. It involves massive amounts of training and effort, every day, for years at a stretch. Like it or not, that's the way it has to be. Scientific creativity requires identical dedication and single-mindedness, as described by Santiago Ramon y Cajal in his 'Advice to a Young Investigator.' The good news is that the training works. The process is the same for a mathematician as for a painter or dancer. It is certain and effective. This doesn't mean that every painter will become a Picasso or that every dancer can be a Tharp. It does mean that a sufficiently dedicated worker can generate new ideas, good ones, predictably.
Maybe, at this point, you can imagine some whiner mewling "I'm dedicated, but that's way too much work and it's boring." Such people have no idea what dedication means. Don't argue with them. It won't do them any good, and it will waste time you could have used productively.
I admit that I never learned to appreciate dance, let alone Tharp's ouvre. I still respect her as an artist and innovator, even though I do not understand her art. This book was very well written - surprisingly well, since dancers I've known tend not to be verbally oriented. I enjoyed the way she opened her thoughts to the reader. It even felt voyeuristic at times, when she shared few words of her private vocabulary. I recommend this to anyone who creates new ideas of their own, or who wants an insider's word on the act of creation.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Necessary Discipline Framework for a Creative Profession
Comment: I was attracted to this book because I like to get ideas for how to improve my writing from reading about what others use to feed their creative efforts. I have been an admirer of Twyla Tharp's for a long time, and feel slightly connected to her by having attended the same high school after she graduated and knowing her twin brothers and sister there.
The Creative Habit is a remarkable book on creative activities that anyone involved in dance, music, painting, sculpting, writing or theater will find very relevant. If you have a good imagination, you will also be able to extend the concepts here to other fields that require creativity such as business.
Where most books on creativity focus on helping you get into a brief creative groove, Ms. Tharp's work focuses on having that groove all the time in your life. Her book is informed by not only her own very creative career . . . but also by extensive contact with other creative people and having read about how others have created in the past. I found her to be the best read person on creativity whose writing I have seen.
Some of the issues she addresses include how to get started ("I Walk into a White Room"), preparation processes ("Rituals of Preparation"), your creative perspective ("Your Creative DNA"), drawing on your experiences ("Harness Your Memory"), getting your research and organized ("Before You Can Think out of the Box, You Have to Start with a Box"), finding inspiration when you have none ("Scratching"), taking advantage of the unexpected ("Accidents Will Happen"), having a clear idea of what you are trying to create ("Spine"), becoming competent in the necessary disciplines ("Skill"), dealing with stalls ("Ruts and Grooves"), learning from setbacks ("An 'A' in Failure"), and building on what you have done before to be more creative ("The Long Run"). Each chapter has exercises, many of which were new to me. I found the idea of either moving or thinking about moving to add new dimensions to my understanding of creative problems I am trying to solve now.
I felt tremendously validated to find that most of my writing habits are identical to Ms. Tharp's ones for choreography. I even keep boxes full of material for projects I'm working on.
The material in the book on how she switched from being a choreographer who could dance all of her roles to one who had to use others to dance those roles was especially interesting. Few works on creativity talk about how to shift from doing to enabling others to do as part of your creativity.
I was impressed that she disciplines more hours of her day than I do. That made me realize that I have room to improve in my creative habits . . . and inspired me to want to improve. That was a great gift.
If you want to be more creative in your profession, I strongly urge you to read and apply this book. It will make an enormous difference in the long run!
Thanks you, Ms. Tharp! Please take another bow!!
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Title: Writing Alone and With Others by Pat Schneider, Peter Elbow ISBN: 019516573X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The War of Art : Winning the Inner Creative Battle by Steven Pressfield ISBN: 1590710037 Publisher: Rugged Land Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Push Comes to Shove: An Autobiography by Twyla Tharp ISBN: 0553073060 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 November, 1992 List Price(USD): $24.50 |
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Title: Dante's Path: A Practical Approach to Achieving Inner Wisdom by Bonney Gulino Schaub, Richard, Ph.D. Schaub ISBN: 1592400299 Publisher: Gotham Books Pub. Date: 11 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Seven Steps on the Writer's Path : The Journey from Frustration to Fulfillment by Nancy Pickard, Lynn Lott ISBN: 034545524X Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 29 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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