Buy This Book: Do the Work by Steven Pressfield

If I could only own one book on or about writing, it would be Steven Pressfield's fabulous The War of Art, which personifies a negative anti-creative force he names "Resistance" and gives writers, artists, and others some singularly-helpful tools to overcome the roadblocks that stand between us and the completion of our work. Whenever I find myself paralyzed by self-doubt or mired in distractions, I pull this slim volume off the shelf and-- voila! -- I'm soon back to writing, hell for leather.

So it was that I leapt at the chance to pick up a review copy of Pressfield's latest can of creativity whoop-ass, the even slimmer Do the Work!, which was released on April 20, 2011, from Seth Godin's The Domino Project and Amazon, and is being underwritten by GE, allowing free downloads via Amazon's Kindle platform.

Or you can pay $9.89 for the hardcover volume, which I suspect you'll want to do after reading the digital copy anyhow. Why? Because this deceptively-slim set of instructions for avoiding procrastination, getting down to work, blasting through the wall to reach the finish line, letting the work go, and learning from disaster, is an absolute gift for any writer who's ever had trouble getting started or bogged down and lost faith (i.e., all of us).

I love that he talks about "staying stupid," avoiding the impulse to talk ourselves right out of acting (or submitting the fruits of our labor) with endless mental chatter:

"A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It's only you and I with our big brains and our tiny hearts who doubt and overthink and hesitate."

Pressfied, who is also the author of The Legend of Bagger Vance and a number of other novels, doesn't come across as some perfect guru who's never entertained a doubt in his life. Instead, he lays out example after example of how Resistance has kicked his can over the years and how this powerful force is constantly evolving. In this volume, he also expands his theory to talk about the equally powerful force of Assistance, which he uses to describe all those serendipitous helpful people and tools your efforts can and will attract once you begin doing the work you're meant to do. (This rings so true!)

When I first received my review copy, I was a bit put off by it's thinness and the amount of type-size overemphasis, as if the reader could not be trusted to pick out the important passages. I was also a bit bothered by what I saw as a lot of rehashing of concepts first laid out in The War of Art, which remains my all-time favorite book for writers. But for anyone who can't get enough of Pressfield's wisdom (raising my hand here) or who wants a simple, deceptively-wise set of tools to get them moving toward their creative goals, Do the Work is definitely a must-buy, on its own or as a companion volume.

"I'm a professional observer." (Sebastion Junger on WAR and rhythm)

Today on Steven Pressfield Online, Sebastion Junger stops by to talk about his latest bestseller, WAR, and his documentary, Restrepo, which premiers this fall on NatGeo.

Junger commenting on his personal writing process:

I’m a professional observer. I try to understand how things work and what they feel like to experience. Then I take those ideas home and try to turn them into words. Each sentence and paragraph has to have the right rhythm, word choices must be original and metaphors must be exactly right. I know I’ve done it right when I pick up something I’ve written and can’t stop reading it. That’s the same criterion I use, obviously, with other peoples’ writing as well.

Click here to read the rest. 

Buy WAR from IndieBound.

A Couple of Links

Today, I'd like to direct your attention to a couple of links.

First of all, over a Romance Roll Call (the military romance blog of Iraq soldier/writer Jessica Scott), I'm talking about homecomings from the front and what they have to do with my latest release, Beneath Bone Lake.

Secondly, I read the most inspiring post this week by author Steven Pressfield (The War of Art) on Overcoming Self-Doubt. It's reassuring to know (in a misery loves company sort of way, I guess) that authors at all stages experience this brand of resistance, and Steven shares some tough-love words to kick self-doubt to the curb. Be sure to check it out!

Three Questions with Steven Pressfield

I've recommended Steven Pressfield's THE WAR OF ART to so many writers, I ought to be on commission. As I've mentioned on the blog, WOA is one of the best resources at a writer's disposal for helping to fight the evil powers of procrastination, which Pressfield calls resistance. I'm such a believer, I'll draw the name of one commenter on today's post and send you your own copy!

And here's something even more exciting. Recently, I was very delighted when Steven Pressfield was kind enough to answer these three brief questions for the blog.

BtO: How does resistance make every other looming task (including toilet-bowl scrubbing) more attractive than the work we're trying to get started?

SP: I don't know, but it sure does, doesn't it? Somebody should write a book about all the different activities that suddenly become so attractive the instant the thought of actually Doing Our Work enters our mind. Did you read that one in Robert McKee's intro to WOA--where he took out all his clothes from his closet and arranged them into "winter," "summer," etc. That is demented! Me? I've done everything from drive across the country thirteen different times to totally screwing up my life. "Whatever works, baby!"

BtO: As useful as it is, I'm pretty sure the Internet is the handmaiden of resistance, with its myriad distractions and the dangerous temptation to hunt up your own reviews (and believe only the bad ones). How do you cope with the web's dark side?

SP: I get sucked into it too. I'm afraid there's no answer but pure will power. How do you stop yourself from eating chocolate? [Colleen's Response: Have been asking self that question for years.] There's a great book, not easy to find, by Roberto Assagioli called "The Act of Will." Try reading that. I started, but it put up so much Resistance, I stopped.

BtO: What's the most important thing you've learned about writing since the completion of THE WAR OF ART?

SP: If anything, I would say I have even more respect for Resistance now than I did when I wrote WOA. In other words, I believe it's even more powerful and insidious than I thought--and I thought it was unbelievably powerful and insidious back then!

The forms that Resistance can take, particularly in interpersonal relationships, seem to be infinite and incredibly subtle and pernicious. It's a subject for a whole other book, or certainly part of one.

Resistance, in my experience, doesn't diminish with time or skill or the accumulation of past successes. It's just as brutal for the long-time pro as it is for the neophyte. And I haven't found, nor do I expect to, any magic bullet to overcome it. The result is I've come to have even more respect for working writers and artists and entrepreneurs who face it down every day and do their work.

"Turning pro" is still the best answer--at least for me. And it helps to associate with other pros, whom we recognize if we ourselves are doing our work. As someone once said, "A gun recognizes another gun."

Hope that helps, Colleen. Thanks for three terrific questions.

This is terrific, Steven. Thanks so much for stopping by.

I hope every BtO reader will checking Writing Wednesdays over on Steven's blog. I especially loved the post "What the Muse Wants." Also, for those who enjoyed historical fiction, be sure to check out Steven's latest, Killing Rommel. My son, an avid WW II buff, loved it.

I'll leave BtO blogsters with one last question. What's the most ridiculous task you've been driven to (see toilet cleaning and closet sorting, above) in order to resist doing your actual work?