Create: Day 44
April 14, 2011 
1 Comment
Day 44
The project drawer.
Twyla Tharp (and who could argue with her?) prefers file boxes.
Today implement a project filing system. Use a drawer. Or box. Or file. Or notebook. Or shelf.
When I was a kid, I bought myself a second-hand piano. It was a player piano and it came with loads of rolls kept in a nice old wooden cabinet with a colored glass door and lots of shelves. I no longer have the piano, alas, I no longer have the rolls, alas, but I do have the cabinet.
Now I keep baskets on the shelves. Project baskets. For instance, I have a basket for each of the three novels I’d like to write. When I come across an article related to a particular character or story line, I throw it in the corresponding wire basket. When I have a brainstorm for a piece of dialogue or plot twist, I jot it down and toss it in.
Who knows if I’ll ever write the novels? But if I do, I know exactly where I’ve stashed my source materials.
Twyla Tharp, choreographer, in her book The Creative Habit, has a whole chapter on her box system. She uses cardboard filing boxes because they’re “Easily acquired. Inexpensive. Perfectly functional. Portable. Identifiable. Disposable. Eternal enough.”
“The box makes me feel organized, that I have my act together even when I don’t know where I’m going yet. It also represents a commitment. The simple act of writing a project name on the box means I’ve started work…Most important, though, the box means I never have to worry about forgetting. One of the biggest fears for a creative person is that some brilliant idea will get lost because you didn’t write it down and put it in a safe place. I don’t worry about that because I know where to find it. It’s in the box.”
In this same chapter she mentions other systems: Maurice Sendak and his flat files, Beethovan and his notebooks.
If you don’t already have a project box system, start one now.
Create Month 2
What to do so far:
In case you missed a day, the reminders below are clickable.
Don’t put off creativity.
Use your limited experience with unlimited imagination.
Don’t worry about the destination.
If you’re stuck, lower your standards and go on.
Take a creativity vacation.
Value your creative visions.
Moodle every other week.
Fill out Creative Project Completion Plan I.
Fill out Creative Project Completion Plan II.
Fill out Creative Project Completion Plan III.
Track project reality versus guesstimates.
Practice seeing creatively.
Keep a creative project box or drawer or notebook.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[...] Project Completion Plan III. Track project reality versus guesstimates. Practice seeing creatively. Keep a creative project box. On the Ides, I’d rather [...]