The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

And, um, thank you so much.

And I, uh, realize that like feeling the feelings that actually you can really tap into it deeper than when you're numbing or when you're, you know, using it as a cover for, I also think that there's a book that really helped me along my journey, which was called the war of art.

um, by Steven Pressfield.

And he basically is just kind of, it's, it's kind of like the book is a kick in the ass, just saying like professionals don't wait to be inspired to begin writing or begin their creative work.

And it was kind of like a kick in the ass.

I read that along with The Artist's Way.

So The Artist's Way was like much more like nurturing and like, you know, gave you creativity exercises and the war of art was very much just like the, you know, the kick in the butt.

Totally.

That's exactly the voice that comes back.

And I implore people, if they are struggling with that, to read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, because it is my Bible that I'll come back to a minimum one time a year, possibly two, depending on the project.

But it really, really speaks to that hesitation.

And what that hesitation generally is, Is this weird social conditioning that you're not allowed to try to do something that you're unfamiliar with because we almost almost embarrassed that we're trying to be something that no one else has told us we are and in order to be writers no one's going to give you the moniker of writer no one's going to give you a certificate for writing that it's going to make you feel like a writer you just have to start writing and claim it

Like I've had, I've had what I call the vomit draft, which is really, really rough.

where i'm like oh so maybe this character does this but then that would affect that and what if there was a dog there and you can just like it's scared of them just yeah just whatever it does it doesn't have to be perfect okay

okay and she had a quick follow-up question about your bible she said she missed it that was the war of art

the war of art by stephen pressfield

What's unique, you know? Uh, All the things that we tell ourselves that gets in the way.

Another great book for your audience to learn about if they don't know is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

I haven't heard of that.

That's one of my favorites.

But you step on the gas in that moment.

you step on the gas because when you do that, man, you, you're, you, you will, you, you will see what you're meant to be and what you were meant for.

And, um, uh, I know I talked about, I talked about the war of art, talked about the, Oh shit point.

I'll back to the podcast.

I always wanted to write a book or something, but I really felt resistance for years.

I would read every book on creative resistance that I possibly could, like Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way, all of Elizabeth Gilbert's books.

Anybody who wrote about creative resistance, I was just eating it up.

But I still had so much imposter syndrome and I just couldn't find the way.

Whatever your goal is, it needs to matter enough to you that the daily work feels worth it.

Steven Pressfield, in his excellent book, The War of Art, one of my favorites, describes what happens when we get to work.

He says, The muse takes note of our dedication.

She approves.

recommend me a book

so i i So I had, I was going to recommend The Fight by Norman Mailer, which is a book, basically Norman Mailer was a writer who, he was a boxing writer and he went to, he essentially followed Muhammad Ali's Muhammad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle so the book is kind of on that but since you said that you're a writer I'm going to recommend a book that I recommend to anybody who's creative but there's an author called Steven Pressfield and he wrote a book called The War of Art which I think for any person that's creative in any sense be it a writer a musician podcaster even a chef whatever it is it's the best book on creativity i've ever read it kind of gives really practical tips as to how you kind of get through get through those blocks where you just can't seem to you can't seem to write you can't seem to get your ideas out um it's such a it's such a powerful book and he's a super inspiring character because So he was in his early twenties, he worked in some ad agency and he decided that he wanted to be a writer and he wanted to write novels.

It took him, 20, 25 years to finish his first novel.

And then it took him another 10 years to get a novel published.