Whether you are a fan of Tharp’s dance or not, she presents here a big workbox of techniques for preparing the environment for creativity and for stimulating new ideas. She uses lots of examples from her own career, but draws from wide reading and knowledge of other artists to focus on practical things that are applicable to a wide range of arts. All artists face fundamentally the same set of difficulties, and some of her methods of solving them may surprise and inspire you. She has a refreshingly no-nonsense attitude toward the level of commitment and willingness to work hard that are required for producing worthwhile art, balanced with a recognition of the necessity to make the actual work as easy as possible, supported by the right environment.
One of her useful discussions is about the importance of creating rituals, in the sense of an almost religious rite, which overcome the distractions and moods which can interfere with working.
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 sweatshirt, 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 St. and 1st Ave., 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.
It's a simple act but doing it the same way each morning habitualizes it -- makes it repeatable, easy to do. It reduces the chance that I would skip it or do it differently. It is one more item in my arsenal of routines and one less thing to think about.
Some people might say that simply stumbling out of bed and getting into a taxicab hardly a rate the honorific "ritual." It glorifies a mundane act that anyone can perform.
I disagree. First steps are hard; it's no one's idea of fun to wake up in the dark every day and haul one’s tired body to the gym. Like everyone, I have days when I wake up and stare at the ceiling, and ask myself, “Gee, do I feel like working out today?” But the quasi- religious power I attach to this ritual keeps me from rolling over and going back to sleep.
It's vital to establish some rituals - automatic but the size of patterns of behavior -- at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, are going the wrong way.
A ritual, the Oxford English Dictionary tells me, is "prescribed order of performing religious or other devotional service." All that applies to my morning ritual. Thinking of it as a ritual has a transforming effect on the activity. Turning something into a ritual eliminates the question, “Why am I doing this?” By the time I give the taxi driver directions, it's too late to wonder why I’m going to the gym and not snoozing under the warm covers of my bed. The cab is moving. I'm committed. Like it or not, I'm going to the gym. The ritual erases the question of whether or not I like it. It's also a friendly reminder that I'm doing the right thing. (I've done it before. It was good. I'll do it again.)
Meaning & Purpose 
Learn It and Use it for Life