Hi there. This is my “summary” of the book “The Creative Habit” by Twyla Tharp. I purchased this book when I was trying to get into music compositon for the first time. Something I’ve come to realize with many self-help books is that there’s a lot of “fluff” but there’s (hopefully) gems in the fluff. What I’d like to do here is summarize the key points that I found to be useful in some way. I’ll go chapter by chapter. The gist of the book is that: creativity is a habit and preparation is the backbone of being able to be creative.

Chapter 1: I Walk into a White Room

This chapter is talking about how intimidating starting a creative project can be. Key points:

  • It’s common for the concept of having an “empty slate” to be totally paralyzing when trying to create
  • Being creative is a full-time job, a habit
  • The best creatviity comes from great work habits being done every day as well as being prepared
  • The routine is arguably more important than the lightning bolt of inspiration
  • Mozart wasn’t a natural genius, his father taught him extensively and Mozart practiced like hell!

Chapter 2: Rituals of Preparation

This chapter discusses having a “ritual” to begin your creative process.

  • The ritual should be an automatic and decisive pattern that forces you to begin
  • The ritual forces you to not think about whether or not you like it, though some days can be harder than others
  • There’s no criteria for the ritual but ideally it makes the process easy for yourself, and your environment should suppor tthat
  • A good additional ritual to practice (on top of your other rituals) is regularly asking “What’s in it for me?” - it may sound selfish but it helps you keep in touch with your goals
  • Movement stimulates the brain! Do some exercise :)
  • Always have a “pencil” - something you can have on your person at all times to allow you to record ideas
  • Solitude is an unavoidable part of creativity
  • Money is there to be used… what better to use it on than yourself?

Chapter 3: Your Creative DNA

I didn’t resonate with this chapter much but it discusses who you are “genetically” in a creative way.

  • Your personality will shine trhoguh in your work in some way
  • Knowing who you are can teach you what you shouldn’t be doing (e.g., should you be a painter, or are you really a writer instead?)

Chapter 4: Harness Your Memory

Another chapter I didn’t resonate much with.

  • Your memory fades as you age and it may affect your creativity
  • Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art
  • An author friend of Twyla’s “taught” himself to write fiction by re-typing the stories of his favourite authors (similar to transcription in music)
  • Get busy copying!

Chapter 5: Start with a box

This chapter describes the “box”, a collection of items relevant to your project (whether physical or digital).

  • It means you never forget about details or brilliant ideas; it’s in a safe place
  • Beethoven had notebooks for rough ideas, notebooks for improvements on the rough ideas, and notebooks for finished ideas
  • The box isn’t a substitute for creating; it’s the raw index of preparation
  • Some never get beyond the box stage in their creative life; they may simply like the comfort zone of research instead of the hard work that is writing
  • If you are trapped in the box, put it away for another day and start a new box; you can always come back to a box!
  • A box also gives you a chance to look back and reflect on your performance
  • The box is most useful at 3 critical stages: when you’re getting started; when you’re lost; when you’ve finished
  • Put your goal in writing!

Chapter 6: Scratching

This one is about “scratching”, the act of searching through “everything” to find an idea for a piece.

  • Scratching is for when you cannot wait for the strike of inspiration
  • For some artists, everyday conversation is scratching; you can get great lyrical ideas from simple conversations, e.g. “I’m working non-stop, eight days a week” (leading to the Beatles tune)
  • Without little ideas there are no big ideas; start small!
  • Musicians typically start with a tiny bit of a composition; they never start with the whole complete piece!
  • A good idea is one that turns you on rather than shuts you off
  • You don’t really have a good idea until you combine two little ideas
  • Ideas come to you more quickly if you’ve been putting in the time at your craft

Chapter 7: Accidents Will Happen

This chapter discusses accidents and some other things I guess.

  • Be prepared to be lucky! “The more I practice, the luckier I get”
  • Allow for the change in plan, the accidental spark. See it as a stroke of luck rather than a disturbance of your perfect scheme
  • The more you are working, the more luck has a chance of biting you on the nose
  • Know the difference between good planning vs. too much planning
  • Relying too much on other makes you lazy
  • A common trap is the belief that everything has to be perfect before taking the next step; just keep moving forward (horizontally) and not perfecting an existing part (vertically)!
  • Your resources may be limited, but they’re enough to get you started
  • Sometimes your structure is wrong; your novel may be better as a short story
  • “You only need one good reason to commit to an idea, not 400; but if you have 400 reasons to say yes and one reason to say no, the answer is probably no”

Chapter 8: Spine

The “spine” is the statement you make to yourself outlining your intentions for the work

  • Floating spinelessly can get you through the day but at some point you’ll be lost in hte midst of a project and you won’t know how to get back to what you’re trying to accomplish (because you don’t know what that is!)
  • The spine is meant to make your job easier, nto to distract you nor be a chore
  • The spine snaps you back to attention
  • A potential danger: the sheer pleasure of working in the studio introduces the temptation to linger and to enjoy the process of creating instead of finishing

Chapter 9: Skill

This chapter is about skill. The gist is that skill is required to be creative so that you can get the ideas out of your head.

  • You have to work as hard to protect your skills as you did to develop them
  • It’s normal that it’s pleasant to repeat the things we do well and it’s frustrating to deal with repeated failure but behaving this way doesn’t allow you to improve
  • Work on a skill until mastery the move onto the next one, and the next one; then you come back around to work on the first one again to shake off the rust
  • Experience may get you through the door but it can also close the door; you tend to rely on that experience and not try anything new
  • “Never have a favourite weapon”

Chapter 10: Ruts and Grooves

This chapter discusses “ruts” (when you can’t produce content) and “grooves” (when the content rushes out, similar to “flow” though this word is not used).

  • The surest sign of a rut is a feeling of frustrating and relief when you’re done rather than anticipatory pleasure of coming back to it
  • Ruts could be because of: bad idea; bad timing; bad luck; sticking to a routine that doesn’t apply to this situation
  • Tradition is not a good enough reason to keep doing something if it isn’t working
  • When optimism turns to pessimism during creation you are in a dangerous, dangerous rut; what’s making you hate the material you’re producing?
  • A big rut may be solved by an aggressive quota
  • Put your internal critic on hold and just make shit
  • Challenge your assumptions
  • Grooves are he “best place in the world”; similar to Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow
  • Different durations of grooves: brief (couple hours), a couple days, or up to months or years (but these tend to come after a significant breakthrough)
  • When you’re done for the day, make a note of the next thing you need to do when you come back to it, and make sure you actually know what it is
  • There comes a point where you have to let go of your work into the world

Chapter 11: An “A” In Failure

This chapter describes how failure is necessary and good in its own way.

  • Failure is therapeutic; it cleanses
  • To get the biggest benefit of failure you must understand the reasons behind it
  • Potential reasons:
    • You have a weak idea that doesn’t hold up under daily ministrations (it turns you off, not on)
    • You leave something in a piece that should have been removed
    • You don’t have the guts to support your idea
    • You repeat what you’ve already done – repetition can be a problem if it’s causing you to cling to past success
    • You cannot afford to be paralyzed by fears such as “what if no one likes it?”
  • Remember: you will be judged by the final product
  • When you run into issues, start by fixing things you actually know how to fix
  • When all else fails, you can fall back on convention

Chapter 12: The Long Run

We have knowledge of the tools… what’s next?

  • The bubble: eliminate every distraction; enter a single-minded isolation chamber; everything should not just feed the work but be subordinated to it
  • You don’t have to exile yourself from others, but you must have a willingness to subtract anything that disconnects you from your work
  • Even within a distracted existence (e.g. a family!) you must be able to cultivate some sort of a bubble if you want to work freely

Summary

This book had a lot of little nuggets. I found that at some points the author crammed in more nuggets even though it was hard to relate them to the chapter as a whole. The book contains lots of interesting anecdotes which lead into her points of wisdom. The last chapter is the most interesting in terms of its implications; Twyla herself was divorced in the 70s so it makes me think that she really wanted to dedicate herself to her craft instead of being in the relationship she was in. (That being said, she has a son, so it’s impressive she was able to handle both considering her impressive career.)