Push it Around

I'm reading The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp during a week of hard work and meetings and it has been helping me keep an open mind and the creative juices flowing.

The most memorable part in the book I reached was where she says that as we develop an idea, we need to push it further. Tharp's thought is that we should spend time to develop the approach to the topic in a way that can make it fresh and interesting.

Tharp defines creativity as an act of defiance. "You're challenging the status quo," she writes, "You're questioning accepted truths and principles." Might that be a reason why blogging is viewed by the professionals who engage in it as such a valuable tool?

You will have good days, and you will have less favorable days; days in which everything may seem like a gigantic effort. Many bloggers have shared their thoughts on what happens to them on those less than stellar days: they view the blog as a sanctuary, a place where, as my friend Peter Tunjic expressed so well, they "sing themselves into existence".

This is a space, a conversation you are creating to convey your thinking, your message, and what it feels like to be you. Your day may have ended or began with a floor full of scattered ideas you were offering to develop and ended up instead littering your space and doing no one any good. Until you pick them up, one by one, and figure out a way to combine them differently and piece them back together.

You may decide to push one or two around in your mind, try them out in your blog, and before you know it, something is beginning to take shape. What if? You are now a creator. By virtue of publishing your idea and sharing it, your creation is alive with possibility -- you haven't given up on yourself. And you're open for business: you are letting other people be inspired by it and in turn inspire you back.

[Jeremy Irons and Justin Theroux were voted the people's favorites at the premiere of Inland Empire at the 63rd International Film Festival of Venice where the movie was not in the running]

Comments

[Matt Dickman]

Valeria - this is one of the most important reasons that I blog. Being able to take an idea, even a partial idea, put it into words, possibly create a diagram to support it and then ultimately get feedback on it is invaluable.

Some ideas don't make it, but the majority do and the conversation around those ideas is where the real beauty of blogging happens. People helping other people grow.

[steveroesler]

What an elegant way to talk about blogging. And it speaks speaks the truth in characterizing the ups and downs of writing.

There are so many instances where I think "no one will care about this," only to find that those are the posts that generate the conversation. And ones that I believe will hit a nerve? sometimes they seem to evaporate.

So it's important to remember, as you often say, that it's about the conversation. It's not a show.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Matt -- putting an idea into words allows us to stabilize the information and packages it so it can be shared. I'm sure you find it is true for you as well; the ideas that don't make it were stepping-stones to other ideas...

Steve -- writing is a pretty lonely activity. It's you and your thoughts made visible through ink or black type on white screen. My theory on the posts you are most proud of and yet generate no response is that there are many ways to respond to something. The biggest compliment someone can give you is to *act* on an idea or post by doing or drawing inspiration from it. Of course, we are not always good about closing the communication loop and letting you know that we did just that.