books

The Inner Game of Music

"The Inner Game of Music reflects the inspired and thoroughly unique collaboration between noted musician Barry Green and W. Timoth Gallwey, popular author of The Inner Game of Tennis, Inner Skiing, and The Inner Game of Golf. Together they have taken the same principles which proved so successful when used in sports and applied them to music - and the results are equally astounding. Just as the 'outer game' of music - proper hand positioning, breathing, bowing technique - is essential to every musician, so, too, is the 'Inner Game.' Based on the principles of 'natural learning', the Inner Game of Music 'is not a rejection of technique which does not inhibit musical expression.' It is specifically designed to help every musician overcome obstacles, improve concentration, and reduce nervousness, thus paving the way for heightened performance."

The War of Art

"Novelist Steven Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance; Gates of Fire) goes self-help in The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle. Dubbing itself a cross between Sun-Tzu's The Art of War and Julie Cameron's The Artist's Way, Pressfield's book aims to help readers "overcome Resistance" so that they may achieve "the unlived life within." Whether one wishes to embark on a diet, a program of spiritual advancement or an entrepreneurial venture, it's most often resistance that blocks the way. To kick resistance, Pressfield stresses loving what one does, having patience and acting in the face of fear." --Publishers Weekly

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

"Perhaps the leading choreographer of her generation, Tharp offers a thesis on creativity that is more complex than its self-help title suggests. To be sure, an array of prescriptions and exercises should do much to help those who feel some pent-up inventiveness to find a system for turning idea into product, whether that be a story, a painting or a song. This free-wheeling interest across various creative forms is one of the main points that sets this book apart and leads to its success. The approach may have been born of the need to reach an audience greater than choreographer hopefuls, and the diversity of examples (from Maurice Sendak to Beethoven on one page) frees the student to develop his or her own patterns and habits, rather than imposing some regimen that works for Tharp. The greatest number of illustrations, however, come from her experiences. As a result, this deeply personal book, while not a memoir, reveals much about her own struggles, goals and achievements. Finally, the book is also a rumination on the nature of creativity itself, exploring themes of process versus product, the influences of inspiration and rigorous study, and much more. It deserves a wide audience among general readers and should not be relegated to the self-help section of bookstores." --Publishers Weekly

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

"Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash." But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber." As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). 'There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing.'" -- Amazon.com Review by Tim Appelo

Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice On Making a Life in the Arts-For Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind

"Actor and playwright Smith casts her reflections on the creative process, the artist's life and the acting profession as a series of brief letters addressed to a fictitious teenager. Defining artist broadly, Smith (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992) shares advice not only from painters, dancers, writers and actors but from a bull rider, a boxer and a dentist. Her advice is often directly practical: how to deal with stage fright, face an audition, even keep well ("Stay hydrated"). Smith treats concerns of the spirit as well: how to cope with disappointment, depression and feeling alienated. The letters have the immediacy of a genuine correspondence, replying to an imagined request for information ("How did you find your mentors?"), remembering a special moment ("It was summer the first time I moved to New York") and reporting on the present ("I just got a call from my agent saying there's a job for me on a television show"). What emerges most persuasively is Smith's sense of the complex interrelationship between one's art and one's everyday life. With a pithiness that wards away the preachy, Smith succeeds in conveying the pain, the joy and the effort that characterize a life on the stage and in the world." --Publishers Weekly

How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist, 5th ed.: Selling yourself without Selling your Soul

"Provides the best overview of political and other aspects of the art world that I have ever come across. . . It is a bible that every artist should have." --Shannon Wilkinson, president, Cultural Communications, New York

"This book should be required reading for every exhibiting artist." --Ellen Rixford, Graphic News

"This self-help career book is the pick of the litter." --Donna Marxer, Artists' News

The Artist's Way

"With the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan lead you through a comprehensive twelve-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions, and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity. This book links creativity to spirituality by showing how to connect with the creative energies of the universe, and has, in the four years since its publication, spawned a remarkable number of support groups for artists dedicated to practicing the exercises it contains." --Amazon.com Review

Living the Creative Life

If you could ask your favorite artist or crafter only one question, chances are you'd ask about creativity: Where do your ideas come from? How did you get started? What are your tricks for overcoming blocks? In Living the Creative Life, author Rice Freeman-Zachery has compiled answers to these questions and more from 15 successful artists in a variety of mediums--from assemblage to fiber arts, beading to mixed-media collage. Creativity is different for everyone, and these artists share their insights on the muse (if you believe in her), keeping a sketchbook (or not), and prioritizing your art, whether you aspire to create solely for your own pleasure or to become a full-time artist. * Try your hand at creative jumpstarts straight from the pros. * Glimpse the artists' innermost thoughts and works in progress as you peruse pages from their journals and notebooks. * Share textile artist Sas Colby's triumph over creative block during an exotic art retreat. * Learn how internationally acclaimed artist James Michael Starr uses experience from his former "day job" to fuel his creation today. * Explore the work of Michael deMeng, Claudine Hellmuth, Melissa Zink and the other artists right alongside their insights. No crafter or artist should live the creative life without Living the Creative Life! The inspiration is contagious."-- Barnes and Noble.com Review