The War of Art Review

I recently finished The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.  This was recommended to the world at large on an episode of NaNoWriPod by Ben. It continues the trend of Ben and I disagreeing with one another.

This is another book about writing (or any other artistic/spiritual endeavor).  It focuses mostly on motivation without using the word "motivation".  Pressfield puts forth a framework that has three main parts.  1. The force that holds us back from completing our endeavors is Resistance, which whispers in your ear about all the reasons you shouldn't work right now. 2. To overcome Resistance you must be a Professional, who shows up every day to work and behaves professionally. 3. Ideas are created by muses in a higher plane of existence, and if we are Professionals we can listen in and transcribe what the muses have to say.  Ideas come through you, not from you. 

This book was not written for me.  That much is obvious in the number of golf anecdotes, the quietly pervasive sexism, and the metaphors about motherhood and childbirth designed by and for someone who has not experienced motherhood and childbirth.  Aside from these more overarching issues, the prose also alienates in more subtle ways.

He asks questions, then assumes how I answered.  "Have you ever worked in an office?"  No.  "Then you know about Monday morning status meetings."
Well, I do know about those, but I guess you're talking to the guy standing behind me right now.  I'll just wait out this passage until you move on and maybe address me again.

This is a shame since the main idea of this passage is interesting and something I could use.  His idea here is that, when you are writing Professionally, you should run your own status meeting with yourself.  What do I need to do this week? What do I need to do to get that done?  How can I improve?  I've basically been doing that this month with the weekly NaNo updates, even though those focus on looking back at the previous week rather than looking ahead to the next week.  But even though this is an idea that resonates with me, it's hidden under jabs that turn me off.

Sometimes he'll be in the middle of making an interesting, useful point and--suddenly!--spew bullshit everywhere!  It's like going for a nice walk and--scwelch!--dog shit, or--splat!--bird shit.  It threw me completely out of whatever he's saying.

"Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder.  These aren't diseases, they're marketing ploys."  Bullshit!  "...Woman learns she has cancer, six months to live.  Within days she quits her job, resumes the dream of writing Tex-Mex songs she gave up to raise a family." You couldn't look up the word Tejano?  That's bullshit.  Also bullshit: the way he talks about raising families.  For example.  "Tolstoy had thirteen kids and wrote War and Peace." ...Seriously?  Ugh.  Just...stop.

These seem like little nit-picky things, and in the grand scheme of things they are.  The real trouble I have with this book is much deeper.

The way he describes various aspects of Resistance can be useful.  They're concepts I've heard before using different vocabulary.  Resistance is entirely internal; no one can force you to not work on your project.  Resistance is strongest at the very end of a project.  The amount of Resistance you face is proportional to how much you love the project because you'll be more afraid of failure and more likely to make excuses to not experience that failure.  If you give in to Resistance one day, Resistance will be twice as strong the next day.

Most interestingly, he talks about how Resistance is sneaky.  The arguments it makes for not working are all perfectly reasonable.  Resisatance doesn't want you to be able to identify it and say, "oh, hey, this is Resisatance and I should ignore it."

When I began this book, Resistance almost beat me.  This is the form it took.  It told me (the voice in my head) that I was a writer of fiction, not nonfiction, and that I shouldn't be exposing these concepts of Resistance literally and overtly; rather, I should incorporate them metaphorically into a novel...Resistance also told me that I shouldn't seek to instruct, or put myself forward as a purveyor of wisdom; that this was vain, egotistical, possibly even corrupt, and that it would work to harm me in the end.  That scared me.  It made a lot of sense.

I've experienced this before, where I started to doubt a project and thought to rework parts of it to the detriment of the work and my sense of self-worth.  However, I've also had doubts about a project where I reworked it to the betterment of the project.  He doesn't talk about how to tell the difference.

He says that Resistance is in fact so sneaky, that whatever reason you have for not working is just Resistance disguising itself in reasonable clothing.  You have no excuse.  The reason you're putting it off is because you're not a Professional.

Now, I take issue with that.  I'm letting my family take priority over my writing because my family has priority over my writing.  Is that really letting Resistance win?  I guess so, because it sounds reasonable and is keeping me from my work.  Does this make me not a Professional?  Yep!

It's this all or nothing mentality that I find the true problem here.  There's no room for slack.  No room for forgiveness.  You beat back Resistance or fall prey to it.  You're a Professional or an over-emotional loser.  This is really dangerous thinking, because in all or nothing, the vast majority of the time you'll be in the "nothing" category.

And I think that's why my earlier pet peeves bother me so much.  This book put me in all or nothing mode, so if parts of it ticked me off, then the whole thing must tick me off.