Importance of Habit

I get more blogging done when it becomes a habit.

Likewise, I get more exercise or writing or design or anything done when I set up routines and stick to them, just as many many writers swear by setting strict times or page quotas to encourage both creativity and productivity.

Dancer / choreographer Twyla Tharp wrote a terrific book on exactly this topic, The Creative Habit: learn it and use it for life.  A helpful book for any creative worker.  It's been a while since I read it, but I still remember that she advocated a version of the same a-box-for-every-project system that I use myself to organize the detritus of creation - all the inspirational photos, base drawings, go-bys, samples, texts, totems, and whatnot you always collect as you design.

Gotta get back into my productive, creative routines!  Today I actually exercised... so there's a start.

And here I am at least typing a little.  It's a start.

Belated Book Report

It's not that I haven't been reading... it's that I haven't been reading fiction.

Now and then I go on a non-fiction jag, usually with a theme.  This  one was on creativity, which explains rereading Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit (I need to buy this book), Annie Dillard's The Writing Life, Creativity for Life by Eric Maisel PhD, and The Career Guide for Creative and Unconventional People by another PhD, Carol Eikleberry.  Doesn't explain  Cinderella Ate My Daughter... but we'll get to that later.

Tharp's book, The Creative Habit,  is a must-read.  I first found it in June (post) and re-reading confirms its good advice.  Creative types need to establish routines and habits that support their work... a problem I'm struggling with myself.  Stomping-today's-fire keeps getting in the way of progress on my long term projects.  Gotta fix that.  Tharp, on the other hand, seems unflinchingly disciplined.  A little intimidating.

Dillard's The Writing Life is a book I've read about for years.  I finally grabbed a copy at Half Price Books (our jewel of a used bookstore chain).  Parts are pretty writer-specific, others are universal-creative... I liked her explanation of why writers usually ought to throw away their first few hundred pages, while painters have already painted over earlier, wrong-headed versions of their painting.

Eikleberry's Career Guide seems like useful book for anyone trying to figure out what to do with their creative impulses and whether there's a career in them somewhere.  It's supportive and realistic all at the same time.  Maisel's Creativity for Life, on the other hand, is deeply depressing.  (Mostly because so clearly true.)  Reading it, you want to self-medicate this antisocial and depressing "creative" condition...   Gee whiz.  Van Gogh might have found it useful though.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter, by Peggy Orenstein is an exploration of the pinkification of girlhood (read my take on Architect Barbie here and here.)  Maybe I can throw it into this "creativity" book group because of its discussion of pink Legos TM?  (An abomination: pink girlie sets mean you might as well label all the non-pink ones "Not For Girls.")  An interesting book.

I'd love to hear suggestions of other good design and creativity books.  I'm doing a lot of research on the subject...

Book Goodness

Ha!  Thought I'd abandoned books for... ?  What, really COULD replace a good book?  I'm currently reading or rereading or madly skimming:

Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser - a fascinating look by an economist at the life and death of cities and why they are Mankind's Greatest Hope.  His discussion of the rise, fall, rise-again of New York City and poor Detroit's current plight is interesting...  As an architect I find his a useful switch in perspective.  Highly recommend this one.

Problem Solving 101 by Ken Watanabe - This book was written to teach thinking skills to Japanese school children, then became a hit in Japanese business.  Now it's reminding (probably teaching) the rest of the world the steps in making rational decisions.  Useful!

The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp - every artist and entrepreneur ought to read this.  All about the importance of preparation and habits in creativity.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris - Very funny Aesop-esque tales about our furry friends... which turn out to be about ourselves and not always so friendly.  Illustrated.  I'm half way through, but, you know, those animals are getting kinda disgusting... They're animals!  Also I'm a little frightened to read the story illustrated with the impolite end of a rhinoceros.

Albrecht Durer Rhinoceros