The War of Art

Recently I battled a serious case of writer’s block.  For about a month I was gripped with the fear that everything I had written in the past was a sham and whatever talent I may have had was gone, baby, gone.  My self-esteem took a plunge and I believed that I was going to be exposed as the fraud I so obviously was.  Dread was my constant companion,  Every time I sat down to write I was filled with the belief that the words would never come again and every idea I pursued felt hackneyed and false.  I considered returning my commission and slinking away with my tail between my legs. I considered going back to school for another career so I'd never have to write again.  Then I remembered The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and I stopped feeling so alone.

Steven Pressfield was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1943 to a Navy father and mother. He graduated from Duke University in 1965. His struggles to earn a living as a writer (it took seventeen years to get the first paycheck) are detailed in his 2002 book, The War of Art. Mr. P has worked as an advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, tractor-trailer driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout and attendant in a mental hospital. He has picked fruit in Washington state and written screenplays in Tinseltown.

With the publication of The Legend of Bagger Vance in 1995, Mr. Pressfield became a writer of books once and for all. His writing philosophy is, not surprisingly, a kind of warrior code--internal rather than external--in which the enemy is identified as those forms of self-sabotage that Pressfield has labeled "Resistance" with a capital R (in The War of Art) and the technique for combatting these foes can be described as "turning pro."

I have read a good many books on writing but The War of Art is the one that best describes what our minds will do to keep us from our higher calling.  Here is an example -  

WHAT I KNOW

There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writer’s don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard.  What’s hard is sitting down to write.  What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.

Or

RESISTANCE AND PROCRASTINATION

Procrastination is the most common manifestation of resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize.  We don’t tell ourselves, “I’m never going to write my symphony.”  Instead we say, “I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.’

followed by

RESISTANCE AND PROCRASTINATION

PART TWO

The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit.  We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.

Never forget: This is the very moment, we can change our lives.  There never was a moment, and there never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.  This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance.

This second, we can sit down and do our work.

I am happy to report that by choosing to sit down and work past my resistance, I am moving past this block and my work is once again flowing. 

To sign out any of Pressfield's work, click on the links below:

The war of art : winning the inner creative battle / by Pressfield, Steven.

 





The legend of Bagger Vance : golf and the game of life. by Pressfield, Steven.

Get Caught Reading!

We writers are always looking for opportunities to help celebrate literacy by encouraging folks to read - so please allow me to tell you about Calgary Public Library's Calgary Get Caught Reading! 

Get Caught Reading is a month-long awareness campaign designed to encourage Calgarians to read. Anyone caught reading on the C-train by the Street Reading Team on Tuesday mornings in February will be rewarded with some great prizes. Look for the Street Reading Team on your morning commute, and check out your nearest Calgary Public Library branch for great reads and more!

Join us at the Castell Central Branch on Friday February 6th at 6:30pm, as we kick off the second annual Calgary Get Caught Reading campaign!  Paul Quarrington will be there, performing live with his band PorkBelly Futures.  Will Ferguson will be there!  Plus you can look forward to wine, chocolate, and scintillating conversation.  Don't miss it; it's free, it's fun, and it's all about reading!

10 Questions - Stephen Hunt

Stephen Hunt is an entertainment reporter at the Calgary Herald and adjunct professor of playwriting in the UBC's Creative Writing Program. He's the author of The White Guy: A Field Guide. His one-man show The White Guy was produced at The Public Theatre in New York and elsewhere, and has been published by Applause Books in Best American Short Plays 1997-98. His writing has appeared in the LA Times, New York Post, Italian Rolling Stone, The Globe & Mail, FQ, Shift, Toro, Saturday Night, Moving Pictures, and elsewhere. He lives in Calgary with his wife Melanee Murray-Hunt and son Gus.

1) Where do you write? 

Upstairs in my office, at the dining room table, at work, in airport departure lounges, in coffee shops-anywhere!

2) What do you write with or on?

I write first drafts on a writing pad with a pen, then type them onto my laptop.  I also have a mini-laptop that write on. It's a tiny, perfect writing instrument.

3) What font? 

12 point.

4) Do you have a writing schedule?

I'm a morning person.  The best case scenario is I’m up at 6am and write until lunch.  I rarely achieve the best-case scenario.  I have a 5 year old son and I'm the cook of the house.

5) Best tip for rewriting?

I think it was Hemingway who said, "Challenge every word's right to exist."  Also, if something seems a bit boring, take that emotion seriously.

6) Best piece of grammar or style advice?

I think writing is all about searching for your voice as a writer.  That's where your secret powers lie.  Keep looking until you find it.

7) Writing rituals? 

When I lived in Santa Monica I was a freelancer, and I played this psychological trick on myself: I used to leave my  apartment for  breakfast, then come back to my office. After the writing is done, it went back to being my apartment. (This worked less well when my son was born.)

8) Cure for writer's block?

I always try to write something every day, even if it's not related to whatever  big, long project I'm working on. Sometimes the reason you get blocked is because of the sheer size of what you're trying to write. A journal, a letter, a little essay, a list of the Top 10 movies you've seen that year, a blog entry--anything that gets you typing, and into the writing groove. Think of writing as an imagination workout: no one really likes exercising but if you can get into the habit of doing it, you do it automatically and get through those first unhappy 15 minutes. If you develop a habit of writing every day, even if you feel somewhat less than inspired, you will be less blocked than if you sit around waiting for Inspiration to tap you on the shoulder and whisper in your ear. I have a lot more uninspired days than inspired ones.

9) How do your capture ideas?

Reading . Listening to the radio. Walking. But nothing beats reading. Reading rocks.

10) What do you wish you were better at?

Sticking to it. At UBC, when I was in the grad school program, there was a writer named Leo McKay, from Nova Scotia, who got more short stories published than any of us. Leo was a good writer, but not Alice Munro, if you get my drift. One day, I finally asked him his secret. He showed me a board he kept in his apartment. It was a chart, of all the stories he sent out, and all the magazines he submitted them to. As soon as one rejection came back, he checked off that mag and immediately sent the story out to another magazine. "I've never had a story accepted with less than three rejections," he said--which astonished me, because I took every single rejection to heart, swore I'd completely rewrite the failed story, stuck it in a drawer and mostly abandoned it forever. Nowadays, whenever I'm feeling a little bit bleak or hopeless about the writing life, I just chant a little to myself. I chant, "Leo McKay, Leo McKay, Leo McKay" and after a while, I feel better. If you want to chant Leo McKay too, that's fine. He recently published a big novel at Random House or some other big time publisher like that, so I think all of us writers need to locate our inner Leo McKay a little more regularly. There's a lot of 'no thanks' in the writing life, and often it really is business, not personal. So suck it up, buttercup, and keep on keeping on!

To place a hold on Stephen Hunt’s or Leo Mckay’s books click on the links below:

The white guy : a field guide / by Hunt, Stephen, 1961-

Twenty-six : [a novel] / by McKay, Leo Francis, 1964-






 

 

Like this : stories / by McKay, Leo Francis, 1964-

eavesdrop your way to the top

Wikipedia, in all its Wikipedian wisdom, describes eavesdropping as "the act of surreptitiously listening to a private conversation."  It also proclaims that "this is commonly thought to be unethical and there is an old adage that eavesdroppers seldom hear anything good of themselves." 

Excuse me?  I would like to say, with all due respect to those sage Wikipedians, that I often hear many good things when I am eavesdropping - although they seldom have anything to do with me, because I much prefer to eavesdrop on total strangers. 

Perhaps the idea of eavesdropping appalls you; fair enough.  But if it doesn't, then try it; it's a great writing exercise!  Whether on a bus, in a park, or at a basketball game - bring your notebook and be ready to write down what you hear.  It can be truly fascinating, and you never know - plucking the overheard snippets of random strangers' conversations out of the air could inspire you to write something you never would have imagined. 

p.s. A word to wise, though ... be subtle (ie, don't get caught.) 

Let us refrain from assuming that everyone is okay with having their words randomly copied down by a total stranger. 

We all know what we make when we assume things ...

p.p.s. Also make sure that you protect the privacy of the people whose words you record ...  

...for example, if you overhear a conversation between two fellows named Gord and Bill ...

... and some bits of that conversation do make it into your writing ...

... make sure you change the names!

Because you don't want to mess with Gord and Bill.

Trust me.

Blockbuster #2 - The Dictionary Game

Grab your dictionary and randomly flip to a page.  Close your eyes and point to a word.  Repeat the exercise on two other randomly chosen pages.  Now take your three words and write a story or character sketch.  Sometimes an artificial limit is all it takes to get you writing again and on the road to success.
 

10 Questions - Chris Humphreys

Chris Humphreys is a British actor, playwright and novelist.  Born in Toronto, he was raised in Los Angeles until the age of seven and then grew up in the United Kingdom.  All four of his grandparents as well as his father were actors so it was inevitable he would follow the bloodline.  He acted all over the world on stages ranging from London's West End to Theatre Calgary. 

As C.C. Humphreys, Chris has written five historical novels.  The first, The French Executioner, told the tale of the man who killed Anne Boleyn and was a runner up for the CWA Steel Dagger for Thrillers 2002.  Its sequel, Blood Ties was a bestseller in Canada.  Having played Jack Absolute (a character from Sheridan’s The Rivals),Chris stole that character and has written three books on this 007 of the 1700’s – Jack Absolute, The Blooding of Jack Absolute and Absolute Honour, which was shortlisted for the 2007 Evergreen Prize by the Ontario Library Association. 

As Chris Humphreys he has written a trilogy for young adults, The Runestone Saga. A heady brew of Norse myth, runic magic, time travel and horror, the first book in the series The Fetch was published in North America in July 2006 with the sequel Vendetta in August 2007 and the conclusion Possession in 2008

His latest adult novel: Vlad was published in Canada in September of 2008.

Chris's Answers to 10 Questions

1)    Where do you write?

Usually in my basement office. Sometimes on a chair in the garden if it’s nice.

2) What do you write with or on?

I often write with my Waterman fountain pen, on hardcover notepads from France. Then it’s on my laptop.

3) What font?

Right now? Palatino Linotype. I also really like Garamond.

4) Do you have a writing schedule?

Yes. When I am in full flow, I like to get up at 6.30 and be at my desk with a vat of coffee by 6.50. I then write till 8.15, come upstairs and feed my boy (my wife has got him up) then take him to school. If its first draft, I can write till lunch around 1. If second... I have to be dragged from my desk to bathe.

5) Best tip for rewriting?

If you are like me, your first draft is quite rough. So see where that took you, follow the tangents you didn't explore before, and smooth out the edges.

6) Best piece of grammar or style advice?

Whenever you write 'It seems' or 'it seemed' take it out. It either is or it isn't.

7) Writing rituals?

A big bowl of boiled sweets on the desk.

8) Cure for writers block?

Easy: put bum in seat.

9) How do you capture your ideas?

Never go anywhere without a pen and notebook. It’s like remembering a dream. Write down one idea and rest will link up.

10) What do wish you were better at?

Ytping. I mean typing... you see! My work is always full of misprunts.

To sign out any of Chris's books click on the links below -

Blood ties / by Humphreys, C. C. (Chris C.)