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The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life Hardcover – October 7, 2003
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- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSimon & Schuster
- Publication dateOctober 7, 2003
- Dimensions7.75 x 1.5 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100743235266
- ISBN-13978-0743235266
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About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One: I Walk into a White Room
I walk into a large white room. It's a dance studio in midtown Manhattan. I'm wearing a sweatshirt, faded jeans, and Nike cross-trainers. The room is lined with eight-foot-high mirrors. There's a boom box in the corner. The floor is clean, virtually spotless if you don't count the thousands of skid marks and footprints left there by dancers rehearsing. Other than the mirrors, the boom box, the skid marks, and me, the room is empty.
In five weeks I'm flying to Los Angeles with a troupe of six dancers to perform a dance program for eight consecutive evenings in front of twelve hundred people every night. It's my troupe. I'm the choreographer. I have half of the program in hand -- a fifty-minute ballet for all six dancers set to Beethoven's twenty-ninth piano sonata, the "Hammerklavier." I created the piece more than a year ago on many of these same dancers, and I've spent the past few weeks rehearsing it with the company.
The other half of the program is a mystery. I don't know what music I'll be using. I don't know which dancers I'll be working with. I have no idea what the costumes will look like, or the lighting, or who will be performing the music. I have no idea of the length of the piece, although it has to be long enough to fill the second half of a full program to give the paying audience its money's worth.
The length of the piece will dictate how much rehearsal time I need. This, in turn, means getting on the phone to dancers, scheduling studio time, and getting the ball rolling -- all on the premise that something wonderful will come out of what I fashion in the next few weeks in this empty white room.
My dancers expect me to deliver because my choreography represents their livelihood. The presenters in Los Angeles expect the same because they've sold a lot of tickets to people with the promise that they'll see something new and interesting from me. The theater owner (without really thinking about it) expects it as well; if I don't show up, his theater will be empty for a week. That's a lot of people, many of whom I've never met, counting on me to be creative.
But right now I'm not thinking about any of this. I'm in a room with the obligation to create a major dance piece. The dancers will be here in a few minutes. What are we going to do?
To some people, this empty room symbolizes something profound, mysterious, and terrifying: the task of starting with nothing and working your way toward creating something whole and beautiful and satisfying. It's no different for a writer rolling a fresh sheet of paper into his typewriter (or more likely firing up the blank screen on his computer), or a painter confronting a virginal canvas, a sculptor staring at a raw chunk of stone, a composer at the piano with his fingers hovering just above the keys. Some people find this moment -- the moment before creativity begins -- so painful that they simply cannot deal with it. They get up and walk away from the computer, the canvas, the keyboard; they take a nap or go shopping or fix lunch or do chores around the house. They procrastinate. In its most extreme form, this terror totally paralyzes people.
The blank space can be humbling. But I've faced it my whole professional life. It's my job. It's also my calling. Bottom line: Filling this empty space constitutes my identity.
I'm a dancer and choreographer. Over the last 35 years, I've created 130 dances and ballets. Some of them are good, some less good (that's an understatement -- some were public humiliations). I've worked with dancers in almost every space and environment you can imagine. I've rehearsed in cow pastures. I've rehearsed in hundreds of studios, some luxurious in their austerity and expansiveness, others filthy and gritty, with rodents literally racing around the edges of the room. I've spent eight months on a film set in Prague, choreographing the dances and directing the opera sequences for Milos Forman's Amadeus. I've staged sequences for horses in New York City's Central Park for the film Hair. I've worked with dancers in the opera houses of London, Paris, Stockholm, Sydney, and Berlin. I've run my own company for three decades. I've created and directed a hit show on Broadway. I've worked long enough and produced with sufficient consistency that by now I find not only challenge and trepidation but peace as well as promise in the empty white room. It has become my home.
After so many years, I've learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns. That's why writers, for example, like to establish routines for themselves. The most productive ones get started early in the morning, when the world is quiet, the phones aren't ringing, and their minds are rested, alert, and not yet polluted by other people's words. They might set a goal for themselves -- write fifteen hundred words, or stay at their desk until noon -- but the real secret is that they do this every day. In other words, they are disciplined. Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit.
It's the same for any creative individual, whether it's a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory. The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more. And this routine is available to everyone.
Creativity is not just for artists. It's for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it's for engineers trying to solve a problem; it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way. Over the past four decades, I have been engaged in one creative pursuit or another every day, in both my professional and my personal life. I've thought a great deal about what it means to be creative, and how to go about it efficiently. I've also learned from the painful experience of going about it in the worst possible way. I'll tell you about both. And I'll give you exercises that will challenge some of your creative assumptions -- to make you stretch, get stronger, last longer. After all, you stretch before you jog, you loosen up before you work out, you practice before you play. It's no different for your mind.
I will keep stressing the point about creativity being augmented by routine and habit. Get used to it. In these pages a philosophical tug of war will periodically rear its head. It is the perennial debate, born in the Romantic era, between the beliefs that all creative acts are born of (a) some transcendent, inexplicable Dionysian act of inspiration, a kiss from God on your brow that allows you to give the world The Magic Flute, or (b) hard work.
If it isn't obvious already, I come down on the side of hard work. That's why this book is called The Creative Habit. Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That's it in a nutshell.
The film Amadeus (and the play by Peter Shaffer on which it's based) dramatizes and romanticizes the divine origins of creative genius. Antonio Salieri, representing the talented hack, is cursed to live in the time of Mozart, the gifted and undisciplined genius who writes as though touched by the hand of God. Salieri recognizes the depth of Mozart's genius, and is tortured that God has chosen someone so unworthy to be His divine creative vessel.
Of course, this is hogwash. There are no "natural" geniuses. Mozart was his father's son. Leopold Mozart had gone through an arduous education, not just in music, but also in philosophy and religion; he was a sophisticated, broad-thinking man, famous throughout Europe as a composer and pedagogue. This is not news to music lovers. Leopold had a massive influence on his young son. I question how much of a "natural" this young boy was. Genetically, of course, he was probably more inclined to write music than, say, play basketball, since he was only three feet tall when he captured the public's attention. But his first good fortune was to have a father who was a composer and a virtuoso on the violin, who could approach keyboard instruments with skill, and who upon recognizing some ability in his son, said to himself, "This is interesting. He likes music. Let's see how far we can take this."
Leopold taught the young Wolfgang everything about music, including counterpoint and harmony. He saw to it that the boy was exposed to everyone in Europe who was writing good music or could be of use in Wolfgang's musical development. Destiny, quite often, is a determined parent. Mozart was hardly some naive prodigy who sat down at the keyboard and, with God whispering in his ears, let the music flow from his fingertips. It's a nice image for selling tickets to movies, but whether or not God has kissed your brow, you still have to work. Without learning and preparation, you won't know how to harness the power of that kiss.
Nobody worked harder than Mozart. By the time he was twenty-eight years old, his hands were deformed because of all the hours he had spent practicing, performing, and gripping a quill pen to compose. That's the missing element in the popular portrait of Mozart. Certainly, he had a gift that set him apart from others. He was the most complete musician imaginable, one who wrote for all instruments in all combinations, and no one has written greater music for the human voice. Still, few people, even those hugely gifted, are capable of the application and focus that Mozart displayed throughout his short life. As Mozart himself wrote to a friend, "People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times." Mozart's focus was fierce; it had to be for him to deliver the music he did in his relatively short life, under the conditions he endured, writing in coaches and delivering scores just before the curtain went up, dealing with the distractions of raising a family and the constant need for money. Whatever scope and grandeur you attach to Mozart's musical gift, his so-called genius, his discipline and work ethic were its equal.
I'm sure this is what Leopold Mozart saw so early in his son who, as a three-year-old, one day impulsively jumped up on the stool to play his older sister's harpsichord -- and was immediately smitten. Music quickly became Mozart's passion, his preferred activity. I seriously doubt that Leopold had to tell his son for very long, "Get in there and practice your music." The child did it on his own.
More than anything, this book is about preparation: In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative.
No one can give you your subject matter, your creative content; if they could, it would be their creation and not yours. But there's a process that generates creativity -- and you can learn it. And you can make it habitual.
There's a paradox in the notion that creativity should be a habit. We think of creativity as a way of keeping everything fresh and new, while habit implies routine and repetition. That paradox intrigues me because it occupies the place where creativity and skill rub up against each other.
It takes skill to bring something you've imagined into the world: to use words to create believable lives, to select the colors and textures of paint to represent a haystack at sunset, to combine ingredients to make a flavorful dish. No one is born with that skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time. Even Mozart, with all his innate gifts, his passion for music, and his father's devoted tutelage, needed to get twenty-four youthful symphonies under his belt before he composed something enduring with number twenty-five. If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.
That's the reason for the exercises. They will help you develop skill. Some might seem simple. Do them anyway -- you can never spend enough time on the basics. Before he could write Così fan tutte, Mozart had practiced his scales.
While modern dance and ballet are my métier, they are not the subject of this book. I promise you that the text will not be littered with dance jargon. You will not be confused by first positions and pliés and tendus in these pages. I will assume that you're a reasonably sophisticated and open-minded person. I hope you've been to the ballet and seen a dance company in action on stage. If you haven't, shame on you; that's like admitting you've never read a novel or strolled through a museum or heard a Beethoven symphony live. If you give me that much, we can work together.
The way I figure it, my work habits are applicable to everyone. You'll find that I'm a stickler about preparation. My daily routines are transactional. Everything that happens in my day is a transaction between the external world and my internal world. Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it. Without the time and effort invested in getting ready to create, you can be hit by the thunderbolt and it'll just leave you stunned.
Take, for example, a wonderful scene in the film The Karate Kid. The teenaged Daniel asks the wise and wily Mr. Miyagi to teach him karate. The old man agrees and orders Daniel first to wax his car in precisely opposed circular motions ("Wax on, wax off"). Then he tells Daniel to paint his wooden fence in precise up and down motions. Finally, he makes Daniel hammer nails to repair a wall. Daniel is puzzled at first, then angry. He wants to learn the martial arts so he can defend himself. Instead he is confined to household chores. When Daniel is finished restoring Miyagi's car, fence, and walls, he explodes with rage at his "mentor." Miyagi physically attacks Daniel, who without thought or hesitation defends himself with the core thrusts and parries of karate. Through Miyagi's deceptively simple chores, Daniel has absorbed the basics of karate -- without knowing it.
In the same spirit as Miyagi teaches karate, I hope this book will help you be more creative. I can't guarantee that everything you'll create will be wonderful -- that's up to you -- but I do promise that if you read through the book and heed even half the suggestions, you'll never be afraid of a blank page or an empty canvas or a white room again. Creativity will become your habit.
Copyright © 2003 by W.A.T. Ltd.
Product details
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster
- Publication date : October 7, 2003
- Edition : First Edition
- Language : English
- Print length : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0743235266
- ISBN-13 : 978-0743235266
- Item Weight : 1.43 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.75 x 1.5 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #255,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #21 in Popular Psychology Creativity & Genius
- #56 in Creativity (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

Twyla Tharp, one of America's greatest choreographers, began her career in 1965, and has created more than 130 dances for her company as well as for the Joffrey Ballet, The New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, London's Royal Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre. She has won two Emmy awards for television's Baryshnikov by Tharp, and a Tony Award for the Broadway musical Movin' Out. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1993 and was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1997. She lives and works in New York City.
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Customers find this book inspiring, with one mentioning how it helps maintain artistic practice, and appreciate its readability as an addicting read. Moreover, the book offers valuable insights, with one customer highlighting its great balance between practical advice and useful exercises. Additionally, the writing style is down-to-earth, and customers enjoy the interesting stories and real-life insights throughout the book.
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Customers find the book inspiring, noting it stimulates brain creativity and helps factor in discipline. They appreciate the author's expertise in various creative fields, and one customer mentions how it motivates them to maintain their artistic practice.
"...I enjoyed the way she opened her thoughts to the reader. It even felt voyeuristic at times, when she shared few words of her private vocabulary...." Read more
"...Plus Tharp is so well versed in other creative fields that it never reads as creativity through the eyes of a choreographer, but as someone with a..." Read more
"...sustained creativity begins with rituals, self-knowledge, harnessing your memories, and organizing your materials (so no insight is ever lost)...." Read more
"...to creativity, as it gives many ways of organizing your life and creative endeavors in order to generate more creativity...." Read more
Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as brilliant and an addicting read.
"...I'm glad I finally got to it because this book is truly a gem. Unless you skim it passively, there's no way you won't get something out of this book...." Read more
"...There is so much of enduring (and endearing) value in this book...." Read more
"Love this book souch good nugget of information for forming habits as an artist." Read more
"...In addition, there are two other threads in the book well worth your while...." Read more
Customers find the book insightful and full of great wisdom, appreciating its practical advice and useful exercises throughout.
"...The good news is that the training works. The process is the same for a mathematician as for a painter or dancer. It is certain and effective...." Read more
"...She writes about the importance of rituals and routines, or how to prepare to create...." Read more
"Love this book souch good nugget of information for forming habits as an artist." Read more
"...And in this inventive, encouraging book, Twyla Tharp shows us how to take a deep breath and begin! Twyla Tharp's rich and remarkable The..." Read more
Customers appreciate the writing style of the book, describing it as down-to-earth and unique, with one customer noting its beautiful words of wisdom.
"...This book was very well written - surprisingly well, since dancers I've known tend not to be verbally oriented...." Read more
"...The book is practical and insightful with elegant typography...." Read more
"...Tharp is a succesful choreographer and uses examples out of her own life as well as those of other artists..." Read more
"...This book really is so well written. She brings ideas to the table that one might never consider being important...." Read more
Customers find the book engaging, with interesting stories and autobiography pieces that provide real-life insights.
"...It is an interesting book, and an easy read...." Read more
"...Generous with deep perspectives, philosophy, and real life insights. What do you do if you are in a rut with your project or story or music?..." Read more
"...This is a pretty good book, well written, an interesting read, and useful." Read more
"...Plus there are so many interesting references and personal stories. She doesn't try to be a writer here, its her non-fiction." Read more
Customers find the book easy to use, describing it as simple hard work that can be put into practice immediately.
"...process, showing that it's mostly a matter of discipline and hard work...." Read more
"...to new possibilities. Tharp's exercises are practical and immediately doable--for the novice or expert. In "Where's Your Pencil?"..." Read more
"...Habits, discipline and simple hard work are the things she stresses again and again...." Read more
"...Creation is hard and an act of sheer will, but that sheer will must have the discipline to back it up...." Read more
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2004Create something new. This book describes how Tharp, and the intent reader, can amplify their creative energies and direct them into creative output. It is so effective that, just a few pages in, I had to put the book down to go back to some writing that had languished.
When I got back to the book, I enjoyed it immensely. If anyone thought for a moment that creativity is some little light that flips on when it will, they are seriously mistaken. Occasional, random flashes do not support a livelihood. The good news is that, whatever your field, creativity can be cultivated. Someone working hard enough and working the right way really can generate what is needed, on a reliable basis.
The process she describes is grueling. It involves massive amounts of training and effort, every day, for years at a stretch. Like it or not, that's the way it has to be. Scientific creativity requires identical dedication and single-mindedness, as described by Santiago Ramon y Cajal in his Advice for a Young Investigator. The good news is that the training works. The process is the same for a mathematician as for a painter or dancer. It is certain and effective. This doesn't mean that every painter will become a Picasso or that every dancer can be a Tharp. It does mean that a sufficiently dedicated worker can generate new ideas, good ones, predictably.
Maybe, at this point, you can imagine some whiner mewling "I'm dedicated, but that's way too much work and it's boring." Such people have no idea what dedication means. Don't argue with them. It won't do them any good, and it will waste time you could have used productively.
I admit that I never learned to appreciate dance, let alone Tharp's oeuvre. I still respect her as an artist and innovator, even though I do not understand her art. This book was very well written - surprisingly well, since dancers I've known tend not to be verbally oriented. I enjoyed the way she opened her thoughts to the reader. It even felt voyeuristic at times, when she shared few words of her private vocabulary. I recommend this to anyone who creates new ideas of their own, or who wants an insider's word on the act of creation.
--wiredweird
- Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2025I am an after-school art instructor and give this book to my seniors.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2010I've always been intrigued to read this book since Merlin Mann championed it over a year ago on 43folders. I'm glad I finally got to it because this book is truly a gem. Unless you skim it passively, there's no way you won't get something out of this book. Tharp insightfully demystifies the creative process, showing that it's mostly a matter of discipline and hard work. She writes about the importance of rituals and routines, or how to prepare to create. To me, this is the key thing in the book and creativity for that matter. You have to find a way to trick yourself to make it habitual. It's difficult to form habits because we can't help thinking about the end result, but the focus should always be to start. After that, you can worry all you want about how to end something.
There's a lot of dance talk throughout the book, but not as much as to overwhelm. Plus Tharp is so well versed in other creative fields that it never reads as creativity through the eyes of a choreographer, but as someone with a deep knowledge of the creative process who could be in any creative field she wanted. Her enthusiastic appreciation of Beethoven for example was contagious. I'm lowbrow, but she made me "last.fm'd" Bach and Wolfgang.
The book is practical and insightful with elegant typography. With exception of the last chapter, all chapters have an exercise section that's enough to be worth the price of admission. It's superbly well written by a smart and classy lady.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2012As is my custom when a new year begins, I recently re-read this book and The Collaborative Habit. The insights that Twyla Tharp shares in them are, if anything, more valuable now than when the books were first published.
It would be a mistake to ignore the reference to "habit" in their titles because almost three decades of research conducted by K. Anders Ericsson and his associates at Florida State University clearly indicate that, on average, at least 10,000 hours of must be invested in "deliberate," iterative practice under strict and expert supervision to achieve peak performance, be it playing a game such as chess or playing a musical instrument such as the violin. Natural talent is important, of course, as is luck. However, with rare exception, it takes about ten years of sustained, focused, supervised, and (yes) habitual practice to master the skills that peak performance requires.
Tharp characterizes this book as a ""practical guide" but she also frames much of its material within a spiritual context. The creative process can probably be traced back to the earliest humans and yet so much of it remains a mystery. When Henri Matisse was asked if he was always painting, he replied, "No but when the muse visits me, I better have a brush in my hand." Of course, he was also prepared to transform an in inspiration into a work of art...and did on countless occasions.
In the first chapter, Tharp acknowledges what she characterizes as "a philosophical tug of war...It is the perennial debate, born in the Romantic era, between the beliefs that all creative acts are born of (a) some transcendent, inexplicable Dionysian act of inspiration, a kiss from God on your brow that allows you to give the world The Magic Flute, or (b) hard work." She adds, "Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That's it in a nutshell."
Throughout the remainder of her book, Tharp draws heavily upon her own personal as well as professional experiences (she would probably not make that distinction) while citing countless examples of other real-world situations that indicate "There are no `natural' geniuses." However, there are immensely creative people in every domain of human initiative. Therein, I think, is her primary purpose: To convince everyone who reads this book that they can be creative if they are willing to work hard enough.
Here is a representative selection of what she affirms:
o "In order to be creative you have to know how to be creative."
o "Build up your tolerance for solitude."
o "Trust your muscle memory" when physically exercising.
o "If you're like me, reading is the first line of defense against an empty head."
o "You never want the planning to inhibit the natural evolution of your work."
o "Work with the best."
o "Never have a favorite weapon." (Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of the Five Rings, circa 1645)
o "Build a bridge to the next day."
o "Know when to stop tinkering."
o "Creating dance is the thing I know best. It is how I recognize myself."
There is so much of enduring (and endearing) value in this book. Perhaps (just perhaps) this brief commentary helps to explain why I read The Creative Habit and The Collaborative Habit at least once a year and consult passages in them more often. Oscar Wilde once advised, "Be yourself. Everyone else is taken." Those who require proof of that need look no further than Twyla Tharp whose career is her art...and whose art is her life.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2025Love this book souch good nugget of information for forming habits as an artist.
Top reviews from other countries
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ClaudioReviewed in Italy on May 3, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars La creatività come abitudine
Ballo come un tronco, sono leggiadro come un sasso: cosa c’entro io, umile e pigro lettore, con Twyla Tharp, ballerina e coerografa statunitense?
Più di quanto si possa credere, più di una curiosità superficiale; tutù e scarpette rimangono fuori dal colpo di fulmine.
Mi è stato sufficiente leggere poche righe per rintracciare una affinità profonda con questo saggio: dove si insiste sulla creatività come un lavoro, una abitudine, un esercizio senza tregua. Il problema è che (in qualsiasi campo si operi) bisogna trasporre un mondo in un altro, cambiargli segnali, linguaggio, vestiti, struttura, valori, per poter essere innovativi ed efficaci: non si può improvvisare, non ci si affida all’estro momentaneo. L’estro stesso risulta presto una tecnica che si deve coltivare quotidianamente, e i frutti si colgono anche (e) quando l’applichiamo inconsciamente, quasi da automi.
Tutto ciò che suggerisce l’autrice non è nuovo, neanche una virgola, ma è affilato e diretto il modo in cui lo propone, la banale ed immediata messa a punto di un sistema elementare: non sei un artista, uno scrittore, un ballerino, un pittore? Certo magari sei un ingegnere, un cuoco, un imprenditore, un insegnante, un genitore... “learn it and use it for life”, recita il sottotilo. Non esiste un solo aspetto della vita che non necessiti di creatività, che non ne chieda un baule, un sacco, un silos, una sporta.
Proprio perché si tratta di un esercizio, di una abitudine, il libro suggerisce una serie di esercizi pratici che servono a fare il punto, a ricoverare qualcosa di ovvio (probabilmente) di sé stessi, a darsi limiti certi o attaccarsi ad un filo, ad un inizio. Non sono obbligatori, e questo non è un libro che mira ad una psicologia debole, ad un lavaggio del cervello. Vale solo il lavoro sofferto su sé stessi, e non esistono scorciatoie (qualcosa che un italiano medio farà molta difficoltà a capire).
Il libro è stato pubblicato per la prima volta nel 2006, ma io l’ho scoperto insieme a quello di Austin Kleon, “Steal Like an Artist”, tradotto e pubblicato anche in italiano (2013); li consiglierei entrambi a chiunque desideri anche solo spargere un pochino di sale nella propria vita, privata o professionale che sia.
Per godere di questa lettura è sufficiente un inglese elementare ed un piccolo dizionario, non lasciatevi scoraggiare, ne vale veramente la pena!
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Paula M ZaragozaReviewed in Mexico on May 7, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Maravilloso e libro y el servicio de entrega eficiente
Maravilloso e libro y el servicio de entrega eficiente
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Eduard LacuevaReviewed in Spain on February 4, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Fácil de leer y motivador
Es un libro muy sencillo de leer pese que esté sólo en inglés. Además conecta contigo de forma muy sincera y honesta, por lo que motiva de una manera màs asertiva en mi caso. Se ve real, no como otros libros que exponen métodos como única verdad. En este libro, la autora explica cómo es un manera de trabajar, sin pretensiones. Muy contento con la compra!
- GavinReviewed in Japan on February 9, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars Learning from a master
I really enjoyed this book. The greatest lesson is that creativity requires strategies and effort. Twyla Tharp has a lot of experience with creativity. She provides exercises that get your creative energy moving. Reading the book didn't make me more creative. But it did show me how the process works.
- A. Z. PinkusReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars This is an amazing book!
I read this book in one go, on the plane from Amsterdam to New York, and time flew by! This book is very well written, and an absolute must-read for any artist struggling to find a way to work on their art every day.
What makes this book different from others on the subject is that it was written by some one who has been successful for a long time herself.
I'm implementing many small ideas from this book and it has improved my working habits immensely. This book is a must must must read for any artist who wants to find out how to easily turn the art creation process into a habit, a daily routine. And it is a fun read, it feels as if a successful choreographer is talking to you personally.