I recently read The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp. It was an easy read and entertaining. I was intrigued by many of the ideas and questions that Tharp presents throughout the book.
"What is your pencil? What is the one tool that feeds your creativity and is so essential that without it you feel naked and unprepared?"
Questions like these are presented early in the book and could seem overwhelming if not balanced with the personal stories that Tharp shares along side each one.
"What are your five big fears? Identify them and break them down. Don't run away from them or ignore them; write them down and save the page. There's nothing wrong with fear; the only mistake is to let it stop you in your tracks."
This can be tough to think about -- but by sharing some of her own biggest fears, Tharp gives readers a head start:
- I'm not sure how to do it
- People will think less of me
- It may take too much time
- It will cost money
- It's self-indulgent
There are also some direct challenges on ways to exercise your creativity and begin to create a habit.
"Go one week without ... mirrors, clocks, newspapers, speaking ... "
A week without mirrors. Hmm. Newspapers may not be so bad, but speaking? Definitely "thinking outside the box."
"Go outside and observe a street scene. Pick out a man and a woman together and write down everything they do until you get to twenty items."
There are obviously many variations of this challenge. I think the primary idea is just to pay more attention to the world around you. And in the end it will foster creativity.
Tharp also spends a good deal of time talking about the power of mentors and learning from their ideas and creative habits. Near the end of that discussion she makes an excellent point:
"You can also scratch in the footsteps of your mentors and heroes, using their paradigms as a starting point for ideas. But be careful. When I was beginning, I would sometimes find myself solving problems in exactly the same way that teachers such as Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham solved them. Scratching among the paradigms is a dangerous habit if it turns you into an imitator rather than a creator."
I think it's interesting the fine line she is drawing between imitation and creativity. We all want to believe we can come up with original ideas and yet (hopefully) are not foolish enough to believe this to be fact. For some reason I have always had a vendetta out against imitation. I tend to grit my teeth when I hear or (heaven forbid) begin to think to myself "let's see how they did it". My natural inclination is to believe that thinking through the ideas for yourself will always yield better and more innovative results.
"The great composers are usually dazzling musicians ."
"A great chef can chop and dice better than anyone in his kitchen."
"The best writers are well-read people. They have the richest appreciation of words, the biggest vocabularies."
All of these are great correlations.
"A poem is never finished, only abandoned." - Paul Valery
I think the same can be said of software.
"Knowing when to stop is almost as critical as knowing how to start."
Haven't we all experienced the truth in that statement? And yet it's so hard to remember -- to make a habit.
"Exorcise the rut. Exercise the groove."
Read it again. It's easy to miss.
"Every creative person has to learn to deal with failure, because failure, like death and taxes, is inescapable."
Many years ago someone told me that the fastest way to learn is to fail more quickly. I have never forgotten that and still think about what it means. A while back I was interviewing someone and asked: "Have you ever been on a project that failed?" With a glowing smile they confidently answered: "No." And continued on to explain how their dedication ensured that no project they were on would ever fail. This was obviously unexpected and the first person I have ever heard say such a thing and with such confidence. Failure is not something to fear but rather something to recognize and learn from.
"No matter who you are, at some point you will present your work to the world and the world will find it wanting. Patrons shrug. Critics hiss. Audiences stay away in droves. Even loyal friends avert their eyes."
Depressing I know ... but there's hope.
"In its purest form, inexperience erases fear. You do not know what is and is not possible and therefore everything is possible."
The power of inexperience is perhaps the creativity it enables.
"The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing." - Hemingway
An excellent read.