Twyla Tharp
Have you read Twyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit? I quoted a passage in one of my books and she made me pay 250 bucks. It was worth it because the passage was so great. Here it is:
I begin each day of my life with a ritual: I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st Street and First Avenue, where I work out for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.
Twyla Tharp is one of the world’s great choreographers. Her day is spent in the dance studio, doing tough, hard physical work. Yet she starts before dawn at the gym. Why? Again, it’s about the Inner Game, the Mental Game.
Twyla Tharp is not so much preparing her body as readying her mind. With each repeated motion—a hamstring stretch, a shoulder press, a Downward Dog pose—she is reinforcing for herself the conviction that “I am a professional, I am a warrior, I am an athlete,” all three of which translate directly to “I am a dancer, I am a choreographer, I am an artist.”
In a way, Ms. Tharp is brainwashing herself. Deliberately. She is using habit and ritual to reinforce her identity as an artist and to power her for the day as a creative force. When she leaves the gym and heads to the dance studio, she can honestly tell herself, “Nothing I’m going to do for the rest of the day will be harder than what I’ve just done.”
That’s power. That’s the mindset of the professional, the warrior, the artist.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
Show!
Percebo que tudo começa no mental.
Overcoming Resistance by getting in the cab. I get it.
That’s a great book through and through.
I have the book right here. I have been a follower of Twyla’s for so long… when the book was published in 2003, and I saw it in a Berkshire bookstore- Amherst, I think, I NEEDED IT with a hunger that was immediate and strong. What could she tell me? The subtitle on the cover is “Learn it and use it for life”, but on the Title page it adds:
“A PRACTICAL GUIDE” Chapter 8 is SPINE. What it is to the work you are trying to bring to life.
Chapter 10 is RUTS AND GROOVES; Chapter 11 is “AN “A” IN FAILURE. Between chapters she sets exercises for the reader. My copy is losing pages from the binding at chapter 2, and there are Post-It Notes all through..
Her Autobiography was published in 1992: “PUSH COMES TO SHOVE”, the work she did for/with Baryshnikov.
Her childhood work ethic astounds me. Aided and abetted by her Mother who drove her to dance and music lessons, she somehow knew what she would become, and what she wold need to get there. Buy this first, or read them in alternation. I bought mine 2nd hand, and it’s AUTOGRAPHED! Who could part with it? Both books are treasures, and not just for the autograph. RECOMMENDED
Early up, garden watered,produce picked,laundry on the line, on the way to the gym. Lunch, set up my easel, while the paint dries, sit at the desk to write. Got this today. Thanks. Cheers to a productive week for all professionals, warriors, and artists.
Making the shift. Appreciate the inspiration, guidance and good company. Reading, “Fat City”. Thanks for that. What a thrill. The writing is perfectly compressed, compassionate and transporting.
Such GREAT advice!!! Just not that easy to do!!! Thanks for the reminder! ❤️ Sys
Because you quoted her, I bought her book. I think she owes you some of the $250 back in advertising fees for her book.
I’ll second that!
Thank you very much for your exploration of this theme the last few posts. Your in-your-bones knowing (and now reading Twyla’s) bring me a deeper understanding of Sir Edmund Hillary’s profound self-awareness: it is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. With gratitude!
Thank you so much dear Steve.
For some unknown reason, the idea to follow a discipline exactly like Twayla’s in the passage is strangely repelling to me. Oh yep, it could be repelling because Resistance sends that repelling Force, but my damned heart feels something else. It’s not Resistance what she (the heart is feminine here) feels, it is something of the light. But I thnik I can’t express it. And I don’t also know if I will be able to hold it.
I struggle with this paradox the last few years, I am almost sure that you are aware of my “turn”: the first years I was “we must go get them” but then I became something else, yet to be expressed. In it, the Force of Resistance is smiling. It’s laughing. It’s happy. Nothing gets done – nothing at the CORE. But around it, gosh I shudder when I think about this, it’s as if the whole ether maybe, the sattelites for sure, prepare something for the core. A shield? A power? I cannot tell, not yet. Especially now, feeling so weak in my path, and in the sensible world feeling that I am heading to the great disaster of shadow work, slavery, and a life that is not our dreams. I even fear that I won’t have the power to do the things that I must do in the 12-14 hours of every day in order to remain at a humble level. A life that is the life we live, not the unlived life.
My dear Steve, I wish you happy birthday for the next Monday. We need you, stay powerful, this world needs warriors of the light, Aragorns, Boromirs maybe, Faramirs (he looks like you most than all in my intuition), Froddos and Sams of the Light. Because indeed, there is the Ring of Power and the promise of slavery in every corner. Open eyes to see — it’s everywhere