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The optional-skills copy was still the v1.0.0 constraint-dispatch skill (SKILL.md + full-prompt-library.md only). This brings it up to the current tool: a situation-routed library of 22 named ideation methods drawn from working artists, scientists, designers, and writers. SKILL.md becomes a 4-step router (extract PHASE/DOMAIN/SPECIFICITY signals → apply overrides → route phase-then-domain → resolve ambiguity), with anti-slop operating rules and an anti-default check. Adds: - 22 method files under references/methods/ — oblique-strategies (Eno/Schmidt), oulipo, scamper, lateral-provocations (de Bono), triz (Altshuller), leverage-points (Meadows), pattern-languages (Alexander), compression-progress (Schmidhuber), analogy-and-blending, pataphysics, first-principles, polya, biomimicry, volume-generation, creative-discipline, premortem-and-inversion, defamiliarization, derive-and-mapping, affinity-diagrams, jobs-to-be-done, story-skeletons, chance-and-remix. Each: when/when-not, the actual cards/principles/operators, a procedure, a worked example, anti-slop notes. - references/method-catalog.md (index + when-to-use), heuristics.md (extended decision tree), anti-slop.md (rules applied to every output), exercises.md (time-boxed exercises). - full-prompt-library.md restructured into domain-affinity sections (general / software / physical / social / lists) so the no-direction default isn't developer-biased. Frontmatter: name aligned to directory slug (creative-ideation, folding in the fix from #18084); version 2.0.0→2.1.0; platforms field preserved. Original wttdotm-derived constraint dispatch is kept as the default path. Supersedes #19295 (which targeted the pre-move skills/ path). Co-authored-by: SHL0MS <SHL0MS@users.noreply.github.com>
82 lines
4.9 KiB
Markdown
82 lines
4.9 KiB
Markdown
# Creative Discipline
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Practices for sustained work over weeks and months, not single-session ideation. Four traditions:
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- **Twyla Tharp** — *The Creative Habit* (2003). The box, scratching, the spine.
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- **Sol LeWitt** — *Sentences on Conceptual Art* (1969). Instruction-as-work.
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- **John Cleese** — 1991 Video Arts lecture. Open mode vs closed mode.
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- **Julia Cameron** — *The Artist's Way* (1992). Morning pages + artist dates.
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## When to use
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- Long-term creative project; the question is sustainability, not "give me an idea"
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- Globally blocked, not locally (Oblique Strategies for local; this for global)
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- Producing the same thing over and over — scratching imports new material
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- You want to convey that creative work has *conditions*
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## Don't use when
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- User wants an idea in the next hour (these operate over weeks)
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- User is annoyed by self-help registers (Cameron especially)
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## Tharp — three working tools
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**The box.** A literal banker's box per project. Label it the moment you commit. Everything related goes in: clippings, music, references, sketches, source materials, postcards. The box is the project before the project is the project.
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**Scratching.** Active daily search for ideas — read, watch, observe with no agenda except proximity to ideas. *"You can't just sit there waiting. ... I read for general purposes, looking for something interesting."*
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**The spine.** The one sentence naming what the project is about. Held privately. Not the pitch — the spine. When the project drifts, return to it. Examples: "this is about a lost child", "this is about the body's memory of grief".
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## LeWitt — instruction as work
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The work is the *instruction*, not the execution. *Wall Drawing #289* is a sentence; the wall executions are not unique works. *"Once the idea of the piece is established in the artist's mind and the final form is decided, the process is carried out blindly."*
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For ideation: produce a work as an instruction. Anyone can execute. This unlocks instructions for performances anyone can perform, recipes for events, scores anyone can play, code anyone can run.
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A few of the *Sentences on Conceptual Art* (1969):
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- *Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.*
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- *Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists.*
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- *Once the idea of the piece is established and the final form is decided, the process is carried out blindly. There are many side-effects that the artist cannot imagine. These may be used as ideas for new works.*
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- *It is difficult to bungle a good idea.*
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- *When an artist learns his craft too well he makes slick art.*
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## Cleese — open mode
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You need closed mode to *do* the work, but you cannot *generate* in closed mode. Open mode requires:
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1. **Space** — a place where you cannot be interrupted.
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2. **Time** — 90 minutes minimum.
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3. **Time** — repeated. (Cleese says "time" twice deliberately. You have to also tolerate the duration.)
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4. **Confidence** — to make a mistake without immediate self-criticism.
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5. **Humor** — Cleese is emphatic. Solemnity is the enemy.
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Most "I have no ideas" problems are actually "I haven't made the conditions for ideas". Make them.
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## Cameron — morning pages and artist dates
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**Morning pages.** Three pages, longhand, stream of consciousness, first thing in the morning. Don't reread for 8 weeks. Mechanism: discharge the surface static of attention onto paper. What remains is the substance.
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**Artist date.** Weekly, festive, *solo* expedition to explore something that interests *you*. Two hours minimum. Strange or playful. Not for productivity — for filling the well.
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Both are required. Morning pages without artist dates produces grim self-disclosure with no replenishment; artist dates without morning pages produces input with no metabolizing.
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## When to recommend which
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| Situation | Recommend |
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| Project-specific, just starting | Tharp's box |
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| Project drifting | Tharp's spine |
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| Globally low input | Tharp's scratching, Cameron's artist dates |
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| Globally blocked | Cameron's morning pages + artist dates (12-week program) |
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| Has the desire but no conditions | Cleese open-mode setup |
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| Wants to make works that others can execute | LeWitt instruction-as-work |
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| Same idea coming over and over | Tharp scratching, dérive (see `derive-and-mapping.md`) |
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## Anti-slop notes
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- These are practices, not techniques. Don't pitch as quick fixes. Benefit accrues over weeks.
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- Don't generate fake LeWitt sentences. Use the real ones.
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- Don't fake Cameron's tone if it's not yours. Use the practice without the language.
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- Avoid the "celebrity morning routine" trap. These four traditions are about specific named practices with specific mechanisms — not lists of habits.
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- Don't prescribe more than two practices at once. Pick one or two; let them take.
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Sources: Tharp, *The Creative Habit* (Simon & Schuster, 2003); LeWitt, "Sentences on Conceptual Art" (*0–9* No. 5, 1969); Cleese, Video Arts lecture (1991); Cameron, *The Artist's Way* (Tarcher/Putnam, 1992).
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