"The Creative Habit"

Hey, this post's for my dear friend Jenny, who is a fabulous choreographer - and an even more fabulous human being. But if you're NOT Jenny, you can read this post, too. (Please do!)

I've just started reading a fantastic book: The Creative Habit by noted terpsichorean Twyla Tharp (cowritten by Mark Reiter). And I want to tell you about it today.

To be honest: I'd sworn off buying or reading more productivity/self-help/creativity books, since I found them to be unproductive, unhelpful, and a waste of daylight hours. But Tharp's book is different (or at least, that's what I surmise from from the first couple of chapters, and from what I've skimmed).

Tharp offers tough love for those of us who want to be more creative and more productive. Some of the advice at the very beginning isn't terribly earth-shattering: for example, Chapter 1 is about making rituals of creativity, and clearing space for creativity to happen. But they're good reminders, and from flipping through the chapters and exercises ahead I know that there's lots more original stuff coming.

Bottom line: for some reason I'm really responding to the practical tone and the hands-on action Tharp brings to bear on the topic. For her, creativity is a habit to be fostered, a muscle to be strengthened, and a craft to be practiced. And she's not just writing for dancers (and I'm most decidedly NOT a dancer) - but for anyone who has creativity inside them that wants to get out. And that's all of us, really, isn't it?

I'll post more here as I read more. If you're interested in a fuller review by someone who has... y'know... actually finished reading the book, please check out this post at Self Reliant Film Blog. (That's where I heard about "The Creative Habit" in the first place.) And please post a reply if you check out this intriguing addition to the creative library - I'd love to hear what you think of it, too.

This post carries the Sasquatch seal of approval.