Just Do It
Nike made a slam dunk with its “Just Do It” campaign. Years old, yet it is still encouraging people to get moving. Do something.
Mark McGuinness hit it home with his recent post up on Lateral Action, where he reminds us:
A creative person is a person who creates things.
You either create something or you don’t. Period.
Common sense, right? Yet how many people still hang with the “Just Think About It” failed slogan instead?
I’ve started the blog off this year with a Q&A with William S. “MAC” McCallister. He’s in the “Just DO It” camp.
Whether you are a soldier or a Marine adapting strategies in Afghanistan, or a school teacher wanting to engage her class, or an aspiring writer wanting to write, just DO IT.
Spend 2010 creating, moving into the “Just DONE It” camp.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
Exactly!
Thanks Steven. I have a well-thumbed copy of The War of Art on the shelf above my desk as I type this, so I’m delighted my piece struck a chord for you.
Just do it – I do it by taking tiny baby steps every day – step by step I move into the “Just DONE It” camp.
Thanks, Steven as always.
That’s definitely my 2010 goal! I got a (friendly? haha not really) reminder of that this morning when I was driving to work and saw this vanity plate: DO OR DIE
Harsh, yes, but in a way, I was glad to see it. Because if I’m not really going to work towards my dreams, then I’m not really living.
Get back on that keyboard – another day in paradise !!
Thanks for the push. Wishy-washy is SO 2009.
Mr. Pressfield, I’ve just finished reading “Killing Rommel”, a book that brought tears to my eyes in one or two places, especially the epilogue.
I want to say that I really enjoy your writing style; in particular your excellent use of present and past tense to immediately clue the reader as to who/what/when. Your use of present tense gives an immediacy to the book, and your use of first person gives the reader intimacy with the story.
I used present tense in my own last novel and was somewhat gratified to find my present tense/first person narrative similar in many ways to yours. I’m the editor of Andrew Mowatt’s excellent novel about the Great War, “Severed Branch” and I love the genre you write in.
I’m certainly going to buy and read your other novels now.
More power to your elbow, sir!
Thank you for this … great quote from McGuinness. “Just Think About It” is a really manipulative bugger. I’m going to call it out for what it is … Resistance!
It is really very helpful information for me and this region has been difficult to accept especially since we tend to favour centralization and governing from the centre.
I did a Just Do It email course for my clients a couple of years ago – This year I’m swallowing my own medicine – So simple and yet sometimes so hard…… Thanks for your inspiration always…..
I’m starting to use Writing Wednesdays as an incentive.
Get the work done, THEN read Writing Wednesdays.
Sometimes, like today, I don’t get here till Friday.
Always look forward to these, Steve.