Twyla Tharp: The Creative Habit: Learn it and use it for Life: A Practical Guide

Simon and Schuster 2003 NY           McHenry BF408 .T415 2003

This is a really good book, and a fast read, but it does not lend itself to summary, so I recommend you read it yourself (especially if you never had a mentor and wanted one).  Thus my notes here are brief (and get progressively more so).

Gotta prepare. everything is usable. rituals of preparation automatically get you into creativity, eg Beethoven got up and walked every day, scribbling musica lideas in a pocket sketchbook. TT takes a cab to gym.

Notes dangers of distractions and fears (eg the executed idea will never be as good as conception ["errors accumlate in the sketch and compound in the model: Alberti]; preople will laugh).

Exercises: what's your pencil (Paul Auster became a writer after being embarrassed by not having a pencil for Willie Mays' autograph). Build tolerance for "quiteness without loneliness." Face your fears. Take a week offf from distractions.

Creative DNA: creative people see the world differently, and may inspire us to as well (eg Ansel Adams got us to see the West and helped spawn enviro movement). Both involvement and detachment (cf von oechs and MC).

Creative Autobiography (selected):
what was 1st creative moment you remember?
anyone appreciated?
best idea?
what made it great?
dumbest? why?
Can you reconstruct process that led to it?
what is your ambition?
obstacles?
what are steps?
how do you begin a day?
What are your habits/patterns?
Describe 1st creative act. 2nd? compare them.
What are your attitudes to money, power, praise, rivals, play?
What artists do you admire most? why? In common?
What is a muise? who is yours?
Confronted w/ superior talent or talent, you...?
With Stupidty, laziness ?
How do you react to impending success or failure?
What is greatest fear? How likely?

Exercises:
observe 2 people on street. Write 20 details. Then 20 details that are interesting. Compare lists.
Pick a new name that reflect the master you wish to become.

Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art (64) genius is seeing similarity among dissimilar things (bisociation?)

Novelist learned to write by retyping favorite writers. Travel in heroes' footprints.
Creativity is mining memory (personal, family, professional, racial). Earn your ancestry.

TT uses boxes for each project. (Beethoven had series of notebooks, categorized depending on how mature an idea was. ) Each project gets a written goal, because the act of writing it increases its chance of coming true [and allows you to get centered?]

Scratching: you can't write; that's a verb. the idea turns a verb into a noun. a good idea turns you on as opposed to shutting you down; it keeps generating ideas, and they get better (96). Scratch to get little ideas that become big ones (read, think about heroes, look at good work). Getting started is not always fun, but it's an incredible luxury/gift. Generate, retain, inspect and transform (after Stephen Kosslyn).

exercises: coins --> pattern
read archaelogically
little challenge; make a song from random words in a book: e.g. gently weeps
field trip

Accidents: gotta prepare, but also let go
Luck is a skill.(Player :"the more i practice, the luckier i get").
No matter how limted your resources, they're enough to get started (and sometimes a blessing, eg sonnet).

Exercise: pick a fight: why can't i...
Describe perfect world. What's essential? how could you get closer?

Spine

Skills: Take inventory

Ruts and Grooves (// flow): audience challenge: 2 minutes to find 60 uses for found object (eg a stool).

In a rut; it's concept that's not working, write down assumprions abort it, challenge them, act on the challenge. (193)

An "A" in failure: categories

The Long Run: on mastery (optimism)