The Creative Habit

Learn It and Use It for Life

By: Twyla Tharp

Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang

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 32 practical exercises based on the lessons Twyla Tharp has learned in her remarkable 35-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 peace. In "Do a Verb", she turns your mind and body into coworkers. In "Build a Bridge to the Next Day", she shows you how to clean the clutter from your mind overnight.

Tharp leads you through the painful first steps of scratching for ideas, finding the spine of your work, and getting out of ruts and into productive grooves. The wide-open realm of possibilities can be energizing, and Twyla Tharp explains how to take a deep breath and begin....

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2003 W.A.T. Ltd. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Inspirational and Informative

I love the way that Twyla Tharp brings creativity from the ethereal space around us and into the physical space we occupy. Creativity is something we do every day. Creativity is an action. This book made that idea more real for me than any others have done. I highly recommend it.

Useful advices

I am always interested in listening to (reading) artists' perspectives on how to "make it" and survive in each area of arts. She provides several useful advices. I understand that the field of modern dance is extremely competitive and under-appreciated. I am sure she worked very hard, tried creative approaches, and definitely deserves the success. But, reading her stories, I could not help feeling that she was still a lucky one. Although this is supposed to be a how-to book of sort, sometimes I felt like she was bragging a bit. I had to compare this to David Byrne's How Music Works, which, to me, provides broader perspective in art in general as well as very practical considerations in music industry. Anyway, I still appreciated her advices nevertheless...

It started to work its magic after chapter 2!

The book started to work its magic after about the second chapter - which is saying a lot since the first chapter is just an introduction and I've read through several books and tried many methods so far to get my artistic engines revving again. Twyla Tharp fulfills her promise(s) from the first chapter - though she is a dancer/choreographer by trade, she doesn't use too much dance jargon and weaves many artists' stories in the book including famous and less famous musicians, painters, filmmakers, writers, directors, dancers, actors and so on. It's an all-inclusive book that can be useful for any creative mind out there, as well as anyone aspiring to develop their creative mind.

The organization of the book is also fantastic and interactive - the first part of each chapter is more narrative and is followed by a series of (well-elaborated) 3-4 exercises that are interdisciplinary in nature but have proven to be/seem to be (I still have to try a lot of them out) quite useful.

Excellent

Nice narration, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the content as well. I highly recommend this book.

Not just for dancers! Any creative!

I love how this applied to my painting practice and it spoke to my creative heart. The examples are powerful and help you relate to how to start and sustain creativity!

Ahhh…. Unexpectedly Fantastic!

This book was something of a revelation. I did not have high expectations as I’m not a dancer ( though love dance and creativity so that’s why I bought it), but the profundity of Twyla Tharp’s insights, methods and experience of a life in dance are totally applicable to any creative endeavor, and then some! Highly recommend.

Nice but could have been more

The book is really nice. Valuable ideas for fostering the creative habit. I just think it's a little too one dimensional since it's very specifically framed around the authors experience with dancing choreography. It would've been nice to have perhaps some interviews with different creative people and their thoughts on how to foster their creative habits.

Too much name dropping and dancing references

We get that you met Billy Joel. This book is padded with her personal experiences that get too specific to be helpful. A good biography of her life maybe but not a great read for artistic productivity

great book

I believe this book is very relatable, easy to understand and useful. thank you! I will read it again

A much-needed shout-out to good habits

Any additional comments?

If you have any creative component to your work-life, you should listen to this book by Twyla Tharp. It's about facing the blank canvas of creativity and overcoming all of the distractions, fears, and roadblocks to getting creative work done.

And a terrific narrator, too.

Highly recommended!