Training = Turning Pro
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have professional habits.
How does the pro acquire professional habits?
By training.
(The amateur by contrast either trains like an amateur or doesn’t train at all.)
The passage below comes from Rosanne Cash’s wonderful 2011 memoir, Composed.
From that moment I changed the way I approached songwriting, I changed how I sang, I changed my work ethic, and I changed my life. I sought out Marge Rivingston in New York to work on my voice and I started training, as if I were a runner, in both technique and stamina. I started paying attention to everything, both in the studio and out. If I found myself drifting off into daydreams–an old, entrenched habit–I pulled myself awake and back into the present moment. Instead of toying with ideas, I examined them, and I tested the authenticity of my instincts musically. I stretched my attention span consciously. I read books on writing by Natalie Goldberg and Carolyn Heilbrun and began to self-edit and refine more. I went deeper into every process involved with writing and musicianship. I realized I had earlier been working only within my known range–never pushing far outside the comfort zone to take any real risks. I started painting, so I could learn about the absence of words and sound, and why I needed them. I took painting lessons from Sharon Orr, who had a series of classes at a studio called Art and Soul.
There’s a term for the changes Rosanne incorporated into her life.
Training.
Self-training.
And another one: Turning pro.
I remained completely humbled by the dream [that had precipitated these external changes] and it stayed with me through every waking hour of completing [my album] “King’s Record Shop” … I vowed the next record would reflect my new commitment. Rodney [Crowell, Rosanne’s then-husband] was at the top of his game as a record producer, but I had come to feel curiously like a neophyte in the studio after the dream. Everything seemed new, frightening, and tremendously exciting. I had awakened from the morphine sleep of success into the life of an artist.
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?"
Very inspiring, thank you.
Right now, I’ve arrived in Edinburgh for the Festival Fringe. The world’s biggest arts festival. I am bringing my first ever solo comedy show here after years of building up to it. I am turning pro. Wish me Glück. Jürgen x
This is wonderful!
And thank you for sharing that this took some time. I think many of us feel that we alone and no one else have to go slower/wait for bills to settle/overcome tragedy or doubt before proceeding.
And here you are.
I am on my way to my tech job right now, wirh my laptop stuffed in my bag because I feel like I can get about a good 20 minutes of editing and research in before I go to the place that pays the bills.
That’s 20 minutes more than if I had done nothing. Little by little I’ll get there, I keep whispering to myself.
And then I read this.
What a way to start the day! Thank you!
Jurgen,
May your comedy double them over with laughter and bring tears to their eyes!
Gluck, Jurgen! Cheers, MG
Good luck Jürgen. Enjoy Turning Pro!
Tell us a joke, Jürgen!
Great excerpt. Thank you. Refinement by practice and structure and attitude. Surrender.
Love Natalie Goldberg’s writing books. Cash’s memoir sounds interesting. Terrific post, applying these ideas daily…Thanks! Cheers, MG
Go get em, Jurgen. Best to you in Endinburgh
Steve, I think you should write a piece re agents and publicity. The finest writing goes nowhere without a good agent or a clever, dedicated approach such as yours. But most writers do not have marketing skills or that type of personality. And the time it takes sucks attention away from the craft of writing. Semper Fidelis, Bing West
Thank you for the article. It seems I flailed around for quick answers to quick results when I started writing, thinking everyone had the writing and publishing thing figured out but me. Stepping into book three, I am more specific in the resources and trainings I sign up for. I talk with bookshop owners and librarians. Interacting with good and great authors in my genre feels normal. My approach is not a now-and-then someday, but direct goals and stories waiting to be fine-tuned. The joy I feel while building toward Pro is electrifying!
Golden words that go beyond advice. Forging pathways to brilliance is rarely broken down into components like these. Thank you.
David Perell had a great interview with Rosanne on his podcast last year (30 July 2025; links get hung up “awaiting moderation, but you can find it on YouTube with the title “Learn Songwriting in 67 Minutes — Rosanne Cash”). She talks about love of language, the influence of dreams, and a lot of what Steve is talking about here.
Steve’s had a couple of good conversations with David Perell, too. YouTube: “21 Proven Methods for Writing Great Stories (Steven Pressfield Interview)” and “How to Write Absurdly Good Stories — Steven Pressfield.”
And as long as we’re on it, Perell’s interviews are top-notch, and he talks to all the best. Steven Pinker, Jack Carr, Anne Lamott, Richard Powers, Lee Child.
The last sentence…. WOW!!! “I had awakened from the morphine sleep of success into the life of an artist.”
This world is filled with coincidence or magic. I’ve been rereading The Daily Pressfield for the kick in the ass I needed. And oh, page 420 says,”If you were to give one piece of advice-and only one- to someone who was lost and struggling, what would it be?”
Steve answered, “Pay attention to your dreams.”
A dream changed Rosanne Cash’s life and it has many times changed mine.
I eagerly await sleep.
Thanks, Steve.
I can’t imagine hitting the pillow without a question for the heavens, Jackie. As Gregg Levoy, author of Callings, puts it…
I know one thing all the religions of the world seem to agree on, which is that dreams are one of the channels through which the gods traditionally speak to mortals. I think by paying attention to your dreams, promising you will interpret them as best you can and attend to them, and just in general honoring them, will bring all sorts of incredible insights and instructions into your life. Why sleep through them?
💤
Thanks, Maureen. If I could only remember them…
Thank you so much dear Steve.
I got something from inside her words, and I will state her state a bit differently.
I believe that, although emotionally she saw what happened to her that way, actually something more happened. GREAT AMOUNTS OF TIME came in the game. One man or woman can’t change everything from their comfort zone in one day, in one year, even in 10 years.
To change the work ethic, to change the way you sing, the way you approach singing, the teachers, the musical insticts, the focus (winning abstractions and distractions) etc., I guess that one can’t do all of them. Here is my real experience: when that journey started for me, in 2005, I needed 22 years until now changing habbits, experimenting, working on everything I can, and always also failing in energy and focus and success, before I could be today someone who can write with greater stability -and even now I’m not succesful. And many powers I gained and lost again and again, for years and years. 22 years, my dear Steve.
So, judging from my life, I believe that all the things she did were not miraculous. She wasn’t the ultimate warrior. One can’t enter that state from a wholly different so fast, in a moment. She was gathering like us, never ending, and one day the discipline finally got her to kinds of success. That is the Hope of Training <3
I'm writing.
My love to you, Diana, the friends, the team.
Ela fez um grande reciclado. E funcionou! 👏👏👏
Precisamos sacudir a poeira (em tudo),cotidianamente.
Grande simples idéia. Obrigado por mais essa Steve.
🙌………
This post is more meaningful than most for me. As a musician, I have to keep remembering that an amateur works at something until he gets it right. A professional works at something until he can’t get it wrong. Sage advice that I need to keep in front of me as my brain seems to have difficulty remembering things these days….