Learning to Practice Creativity

After reading a great review on Trent's The Simple Dollar of the Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp, I found myself yearning to sink into it's pages and quickly ordered a used copy from half.com. I found the book fantastic, quite inspiring and yet it has sent my every day activities into a whirlwind. In a nutshell, (and I really urge you to check out Trent's review for more info, it's beautifully written) the book heralds forming habits and routines about one's creative practices.

Habits, routines, rituals. Such a lovely idea. The order organizational systems can offer to an otherwise chaotic mis mash of activities, people and events that compose a day, has always been quite alluring to me. Let me explain.

I was one of those kids that loved the two or three weeks before school started. I kicked them off by detailed review of my favorite self-improvement books, "How to Get Straight A's" and "How to Do Better in School", two proud finds from Scholastic's "Book Orders" (anyone remember these??).

I cleaned out my bedroom, spent days organizing my desk into the perfect workspace, complete with pencils lined in order of size beside a stack of pink rubbery erasers in my "tool drawer", journals and art work stacked neatly in my "creative drawer" and old birthday cards and letters arranged by date in my "letters drawer".  I meticously sorted through my closets creating long lists of the various outfits I could wear and the days on which they should be worn (a fashion spread in the magazine Girl's Life has inspired this: "Smart On Mondays! Fun on Tuedays! Cute on Wednesdays :)... Casual Fridays..."... cheeky friggin magazine). Oh and the planner, the planner was the best part. Preparing detailed order of days, "Wake at 7am, dressed with brushed teeth by 7:30 and downstairs for breakfast, leave at 8:30, snack at 4pm, 2 hours of math homework, 45 minutes of piano practice..." and so on.

But most of all, I worshiped the day when my Mom packed my sisters and I into the family Astro van for.... back to school shopping. This was, the day of all days for me. Seriously people, I think it rivaled with Christmas morning. Picking out the shiny new binders, the colorful folders, the endless dividers to section a thick stack of college ruled paper into "History: Notes", "History: Homework", "History: Class Work", "History: Projects" and so on.

I wasn't just an anal kid. A month into school, my drawers were a mess, file system failed in favor of the quick 'stuff everything into the backpack' and my homework assignments were turned in half completed, if not altogether late.This much loved organization process that I gingerly spread out over a period of weeks much in the same way one slowly savors their favorite desert to the last drop, was my childish attempt at harnessing my unruly creative mind, controlling the rather hellish social experience that was grade, middle and high school for me, and perhaps the first of my many attempts, at escaping being present.

Reflecting on my childhood, it's clear that planning wasn't the hard part, it was the learning to live within the habit I envisioned. The hard part is finding the discipline to shape hours of messy life into a routine and actually complete the plan. Intrinsic to executing a routine is sitting down in the present, focusing on the moment and carrying out what might be a much anticipated event (however mundane it may seem). I might of created the perfect workspace, the perfect to do list, but I also created a lot of expectation and a lot to fail at.

Ann Lamont talks a lot about this in her book, "Bird by Bird", she writes something like, if you want to be writer, you have to write. Yes, that means you actually have to sit down and write. I recollect this now, as I, freshly graduated with malleable days I am trying to form what Tharp calls a "creative habit", a way I can actually do everything I talk so much about.

Creating a habit, delineating my days, can thus be a bit nerve racking for me because it sets up a clear path of failure. Between demanding job, planning a wedding (yes the big day is October 11), managing en-crazed social life (I sometimes think my financee has more friends and events to attend than God), and trying to get a workout in each day, my goal of "practicing my writing" seems to often get sunk along with any goal of ritual. My mind feels like a cobweb of possible routines, all stretching out in this and that direction.

It also doesn't help that I am still in the fearful point when it comes to writing, the blank page can be quite terrifying and procastination has been a long time friend. Oh yeah. And this blogging thing. I am definitely dealing with "post traumatic blog syndrome". The concept that people are actually reading what I am writing didn't really sink into now. It doesn't matter if it's only 5, it's more than one (aka me). That I will force myself to get over. But what I want to throw out this:

What are your habits? Does your day have routine? How do you keep them?

I find other people's daily rituals, routines and traditions so very interesting, probably because I have a lot of trouble keeping one myself. Voyeurism and procastination often go hand and hand.

If you're a creative person or a blogger, how do you practice? How do you settle down into day? Is there action that sparks your routine?

Comments

[Glib Gurl]

I am LOL over here because your back-to-school routine sounds just like mine. I *lived* for the days when I would get my new Trapper Keeper and fill it with neon folders and whatnot.

I actually have heard great things about "The Creative Habit" - now I will really have to give it a read. Unfortunately, I don't have any particular "habits" (unless you count falling asleep on the couch and waking up late for work the next morning). But I very much want to develop some . . . especially that working out everyday thing you've got going.

I recently STOPPED blogging because I just couldn't keep up and felt a lot of pressure to make it really good.

So yeah, I guess I'm not answering your question, but just wanted to say that I appreciate your post.

[85878992@magpie]

When you get the answers to the wondering your life gives you, let us know. I've lived a number of decades longer than you, and still can't see how one gets to those things you always think about, like knit that afgan; plant that north garden yet another time, hoping finally for success to replace your prior black-thumb gardening efforts; create a piece of textile art that you've admired in all those magazines you buy, read, yet do nothing with; or clear out and reorganize the closet, drawers or garage that have needed it for more time than would be good to count. Yet, isn't it okay to be who you are? Some folks are logical and orderly, methodical about life. Others are moving at the moment's inspiration, because they carry inspiration within them. Aren't we all, no matter what composite of qualities we may be, needed just as we are. Isn't that mixture of people-types that which creates the richness, color and variety of the human fabric we weave together? Isn't okay to be one who loves the setting up of order before an event, even though after as one goes through it, you abandon it for the realities of how you practically work? As long as the work happens, does it matter if it happened as planned or as executed?