Whoever Your Parents and Teachers Told You You Were … You Aren’t.
I come from down in the valley,
where, Mister, when you’re young,
they bring you up to do
like your Daddy done.
These opening lines from Bruce Springsteen’s “The River,” describe with brutal accuracy the way most children are socialized—in all cultures, at all economic levels.
That ain’t the way the Artist’s Journey works.
You may have the same red hair and hazel eyes as your Mom or Dad, but who-you-are goes many levels deeper than physical DNA.
On your Artist’s Journey, you will produce the songs, movies, dances, and novels that will tell you who you really are.
Time, courage, and work will reveal the Self hidden within the Stone.
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.
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.
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?"
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I’ve just come back to this blog after a couple years of distraction and, just as I was reading this, When Doves Cry came over the jukebox.
Fate may be real.
Time, courage, and work indeed. More of each that we might ever suspect.
And I am not what I think I am. Thanks, Steven.
And perhaps An Artist might write a book/movie -or better a many-season Netflix series- about various parents, low to high on the wealth scale, who raise each of their children in ways that give each kid the quickest path to being who they are best born to be.
Or at least a comedy about how hard that would be to do, and how the parents just keep trying, anyway, with courage, hard work, and good humor.
And I think we are and can be far more, and different from, what we believed, or are indoctrinated into believing, we are. A person has such vast potential and depths.
This short post is a tonic for our souls.
Thank you Steve!
Thank you, Steven. From your lips to God’s ears.
Those who dared to be different from what was laid before them are life’s greatest success stories. I think this post is my favorite. Thanks Steve.
Thank you very much dear Steve, always.
We come from eternity, our very existence is a multiplicity that can’t be expressed easily,it would need thousands or millions of tomes to take a look at it! And yet we are raised in our society in certain, usually inflexible ways, that would possibly fit in a tome or two.
Nothing can describe us very accurately I believe – not that it is not possible, but it is unequally large to do so. For we obey to the laws of nature and thus our dynamics are limited, and also so many in numbers, that we can say they are infinite.
So if nothing can describe us, let us know that and describe our selves through our whole life! It can be a game, fun, in the midst of chaos! Our every next step should be anew, every rigid rule should be bended. Perhaps in a way that choice is not by itself necessary, but it is necessary for the quality of life in general, and since life seems to be the only thing that has consciousness, then life seems to be all that matters – but of course in an environment of basic ethics and care, together with our total freedom.
So rise painters, poets, philosophers! Embrace the unending world. And see if you find something that was hidden from view but was all-so-important. It is out there, and one (at least) awaits each one of you and only.
P.S.1 I already watched a part of Casablanca that you mentioned last week. What adventures of man and woman there were (and are) in this world! And ah, I saw the French ambassador from Lawrence at a quite equal -in terms of energy- role there. I must devour all those classics, not only the cheeses and the yogurts in my fridge.
P.S.2 I started a 1-year Master on History of Philosophy! Ah, at last after nearly half a century a public study for me that I’m quite interested in. We are now at the Byzantine times, and the debate is whether philosophy was totally religious or not, and if the 3 influences of the “last of the Romans” were ancient greek philosophy, christianity and the eastern philosophy(?). What a world has gone by!
Hi Tolis! I plan on watching Casablanca, too. I loved his recommendation of The Maltese Falcon. Bogey was quite the boss.
Thank you for your encouraging words!
Hi Kate! believe you will love it! And keep in mind that AFI 100 list that Steve mentioned last time, for I will for certain <3 I thank you for being here always, you bring light to this whole conversation of Steve whether you read or comment.
Yeah, my songs keep surprising me. I’ve come to recognize that what comes out, is not what I expected. Sometimes in doing rewrites, the pen seems to take over and drag my hand with it. Scary the first two times, and I’m not sure I want to ever take it for granted, my inner writer seems to see TRUTH. After a lifetime of trying to be artistic or clever, it shocks me to see the underlying truth and how it can be expressed uniquely in a song.
This would seem to be true for many with fathers in business or trade, where one must break away from family traditions in order to pursue a road of self-discovery in the arts. And yet, in older days, the arts too were passed down from generation to generation, and finding your unique voice was not always a process at odds with receiving your father’s wisdom and guidance, or of being some version of who you were raised to be. There is always self-discovery in the artist’s journey, but lineage is important too.
Since I left the theater, my life is meaningless. I was diagnosed with depression and severe anxiety. My country does not value ART. Artists here (Brazil) is TV celebrity! So, as I need to pay my bills, CHECKMATE to me. I can’t fit into this world. Thank you, Mr. Pressfield. I just found out your site; a mainstay.
“Time, courage, and work will reveal the Self hidden within the Stone.”
My eyes watered reading this today. Thank you, Governor!!
Can’t agree more! This’s the best! Amen and Amen
🙂
I never connected those dots before. Thank you.
Thanks Steve this was OMG moment absolutely right, each stroke you paint on the canvas of your Life remain there and shows the world you are master craftsmen or not from doing to Being
Thanks for the post, Steven. The takeaway for me is that if we find ourselves on the wrong path, we can always change.
Although the apple falls close to the tree, it also falls some distance from the tree…
I love seeing who all these glorious contributors to this blog are. I always check the links. It’s kind of a cozy feeling. I love that we all understand, and feel deeply what you share, Steven.
Wouldn’t it have been grand to have understood these things you wrote of, when I was younger? And wouldn’t it have been brilliant to have realized just how eventful love is, when it’s right therein front of you? I guess that just wasn’t possible.
🍃🌸🍃
This reminded me of how, as a child in the Bronx and surrounded by incurious adults, I would stay up late watching Lon Chaney Jr. shape-shift as the Wolf Man and wish I could shape-shift, too, into anything other than what I was. Thank you, Steven, for giving me a smile … and a twinge.
Inspire to create. This is what perspires from your short but brutally honest and brilliant essay. Keep on trucking!
Thank you!
Thanks Steve! I’ve waited too long to talk. But today’s message is amazingly on target: I have been enmeshed in Carl Jung, Jim Hollis, + a few others lately,, so I appreciate you even more. Ed.
Visit Marketing Waly for insights and resourcesDespite my teacher and parents’ efforts to guide me, I felt suffocated by their rigid expectations. Their criticism and pressure to conform felt overwhelming, stifling my creativity and individuality. I struggled to find my voice, feeling lost and misunderstood. Their well-intentioned but harsh approach left emotional scars, making me question my self-worth. I’m still unraveling the damage, seeking self-acceptance and redemption.