Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The creative habit - Book 56


The creative habit: learn it and use it for life : a practical guide
by Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp is world famous for her dance choreography, so ordinarily I wouldn’t have picked up this book up. Fortunately I watched an on-line video of a speech given by Merlin Mann at Mac World. It was a funny presentation in which he shared a few things that resonated with my beliefs and he mentioned this book. He said it was best book on creative thought ever written, and luckily my library system had it.

Through many clear examples the author lays out some clear steps for everyone to get in touch with their creative side. First of all their isn’t any magic, or any special gift. Successful creative people work their asses off. Reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers really works well with this. Put in the time, practice, and formulate rituals. The problem is most people just wait for something to happen to them without putting in the work. People who work are able to capitalize on and use what happens to them. It is a small but important difference.

You want to write – then write! Yes your first stuff will be crap, but if you write everyday ultimately you will probably write something good. Want to paint, then paint! Practice, practice, practice. There is no secret, no magic formulas, no shortcut. As I tell my kids when they pick up something valuable, “What is the chance of you breaking that if you leave it alone?” That example is a little self serving, but there is truth at its core. What is the chance of you playing the guitar if you never pick it up?

Mormon Mentions: Nada

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

See writing a book is not crazy. The second one is getting there. Creative thinking is something you have to work on, I figured that one out after years of waiting for the book to write itself, its sad but it never did until I sat down and typed what was in my head. Good or not I did it. This is Lisa feeling pretty good with all the pain medicine.