You'll Find My Pencil Up Your Ass

Two chapters into the Twyla Tharp book, The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life, and my head spins.

1. Rituals and routines – I need one. After contemplating simple things I could to do to switch from domestic life to creative life, I have come up with closing the door to my bedroom and reading a book about writing, grammar, etc. for at least fifteen minutes.

2. Despite my best hope, she does make mention of “sacrifice.” She ties it nicely into rituals of yore, when lambs were slaughtered, bleed in the right way and stacked on fires to appease the gods. Rituals are a way to gain control or feel as if control could be gained.

One of the things I find so frustrating about these books is most come from the point of view that we fledglings have nothing to do with the rest of our lives but create. Sure, if I had editors, deadlines, agents and incoming checks, I could afford to sacrifice. However, I have a son to feed, a husband to love, family that needs me and friends that love me. Believe it or not, that does take a huge chunk of my day. I don’t watch a lot of television, watch a lot of movies or even listen to all that much music. If I had wasteful parts of my day I could heave onto the deity bonfire, I would happily and willingly.

Instead, I’m stuck finding what little fat I can cut from this lean life. Some flavor will end up on the flames, though it’s not as fucking easy as she makes it sound.

3. Her creative exercises at the end of chapter two are not “exercises.” I mean, “Where’s My Pencil?” I don’t even understand what she wants me to do other than think of the thing that made me want to become a writer. I have things in my head. If I don’t leech them out somewhere, my head will explode. As anyone with experience will tell you, getting gray matter out of carpet and upholstery isn’t as easy as one would think.

Why do these things piss me off? I pick up book after book, searching for guidance and ideas, only to end up wanting to rusty-sporking something into an infectious death. I know these writers are trying to help, so why does it piss me off?