The Creative Habit

Learn It and Use It for Life

eBook

English language

Published March 24, 2009

ISBN:
9781439106563
3 stars (1 review)

One of the world’s leading creative artists, choreographers, and creator of the smash-hit Broadway show, Movin’ Out, shares her secrets for developing and honing your creative talents—at once prescriptive and inspirational, a book to stand alongside The Artist’s Way and Bird by Bird.

All it takes to make creativity a part of your life is the willingness to make it a habit. It is the product of preparation and effort, and is within reach of everyone. Whether you are a painter, musician, businessperson, or simply an individual yearning to put your creativity to use, The Creative Habit provides you with thirty-two practical exercises based on the lessons Twyla Tharp has learned in her remarkable thirty-five-year career.

In "Where's Your Pencil?" Tharp reminds you to observe the world -- and get it down on paper. In "Coins and Chaos," she gives you an easy way to restore order and …

2 editions

The Creative Habit

3 stars

1) "More than anything, this book is about preparation: In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative."

2) "It's vital to establish some rituals—automatic but decisive patterns of behavior—at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way."

3) "You can't just dance or paint or write or sculpt. Those are just verbs. You need a tangible idea to get you going. The idea, however minuscule, is what turns the verb into a noun—paint into a painting, sculpt into sculpture, write into writing, dance into a dance."

4) "Scratching is what you do when you can't wait for the thunderbolt to hit you. As Freud said, 'When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.' How is that different from a movie producer calling …