Digging the Pressfield

Apr 14

I hate reading those articles that insist “Every writer needs to do THIS!” or “If you’re not doing X, you’re doomed to fail as a writer!” But I may have just written that article. About two years ago, when I was on a research trip with my wife, I read a book that I have had my eye on for years. It’s one of those books about writing that kept popping up on my radar, called [affiliate link throughout this article] The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield.

I’m talking about about this today at SleuthSayers, the mystery blog, in a post entitled,

The Pressfield Synchronicities!

As I explain in the post, once I read the book, which I found fascinating, I kept running into people who either had read it or have been meaning to read it, or needed to read it. You probably need to read it, too. Here’s why..

Mr. Presfield is a novelist and screenwriter. He writes books for writers, and huge tomes of historical fiction that are on the reading lists of military academies. He writes screenplays, but as he admits, most the movies that have emanated from them are lousy. He did write a book called The Legend of Bagger Vance, which was made into a movie I always see playing on the golf channel when I am in sports bars. (I know nothing about sports or golf, if you must know, but that doesn’t mean I feign blindness when entering such establishments.)

Pressfield’s book was pubbed in 2002 and has a bajillion reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads. Why? Here’s what I say in my post:

The O.G. paperback is about 165 pages, with chapters that are a page or two long. Each reads like a mini-sermon, wherein Pressfield addresses the central question facing any creative person: Why the hell don’t we do the things we say we want to do? Why don’t we write that novel? Why don’t we start that business? Why don’t we tell our bosses to shove it and go off on our own? Why don’t we pursue in this life what our souls are meant to achieve?

The villain, he says, is something called Resistance:

“Most of us live two lives,” he begins. “The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two lies Resistance.”

He could have called it Procrastination or Avoidance. But Resistance nails it. It is a pernicious evil that threatens to crush us, that wants to keep us in our lower, unrealized state. To keep us ordinary, perhaps, or boring, so we don’t threaten our comfort level or the comfort level of others.

Mr. Pressfield has since gone on to write about a half dozen other books in this vein, aimed at creative types, but the first one is the really the only one you need to read.

And here’s the thing: I think all creative people should read it. If you’re a dancer, a sculptor, a blacksmith, a business entrepreneur-in-training, you need to read this book.

Many people fight me on this. They read a few chapters and they’re pissed because Mr. Pressfield’s examples are mostly drawn from the very-similar worlds of book-writing and screenwriting. “Why did I buy this book?” angry reader says, “I’m a potter. I should read a book written by a potter.”

Be my freaking guest. Buy and read that book, if it exists, but then come back and finish The War of Art.

I don’t understand why so many people have a problem with this.

Yes, it’s about writing, but in the book, writing is a placeholder—a freaking metaphor—for all unachieved creative endeavors, defined by something your soul is crying out to do but which you lunkheadedly keep yourself from doing—and feel miserable for it.

So, again, do yourself a favor and start by reading my article.

And for the record, the only other thing I think most writers should read is Michael Ventura’s essay, “The Talent of the Room,” which I talked about and linked to in this article: