Steven Pressfield
Today’s Ask Me Anything question comes from John Thomas. How in the world do you keep focused to do the work consistently with outside pressures of family (spouse and four kids who I want to spend time with) and financial pressures? How do you carve out an habitual practice of doing your work? PDF Transcript: Coming Soon Shawn: I have a question here Steve from John Thomas that I think I’d like to take because it’s something that I think we’ve touched on before, but it’s worth going over again. How in the world do you keep focused to do…
Read MorePDF Transcript: Coming Soon
Read MoreOur question today is from Jason K: Twenty years ago, if you had access to the current generation of self-publishing options, how would you have used them? This is the last question from our session we recorded a few weeks ago. Stay tuned for our next podcast, Organizing a Day, Organizing a Year. We’ll be sending it out in its entirety to First Look Access members Jan. 1 and releasing one question per week here on the blog.
Read MoreThis week’s question comes from Jason Kraus. He asks … What is the most challenging part of dealing with the publishing industry (besides actually getting published)?
Read More[A few technical notes before we get into this Monday’s podcast. We are currently offering four ways to get your podcast fix. You can stream the podcast directly here on the blog, you can download the file to your computer (see the little download button on the bottom left of the player), you can read the transcript, or you can subscribe to us on SoundCloud. SoundCloud also offers apps for Android and Apple devices, so if you subscribe to Black Irish Books on SoundCloud new episodes will appear automatically on your phones or tablets. And now on with the show.]…
Read MoreThe second question in our Ask Me Anything Mondays series comes from Petra Miersch. Do you always know exactly how the story will end? What do you do when you do not know the end? You can also download a PDF transcript of the recording session. If you’re just tuning in, these questions are pulled from a longer podcast that I recorded with Shawn based on your questions. It’s not too late to get involved, sign up for our First Look Access to get in on the action.
Read MoreI’m excited to announce we have a new series to add to the blog! When we were promoting The Authentic Swing we asked for questions you’d like Shawn and I to answer in an hour long podcast. We received an overwhelming number of great questions, over 250 of them, and in that first hour only made it through about a dozen. So Shawn and I got back on Skype and decided to start recording more. This space on Mondays will be for short audio clips—however long it takes for us to answer just one question. If you’ve already signed up…
Read More“Gravitational Fields” ran November of 2009 for the first time. It’s visiting again for the long Thanksgiving weekend. How do you get a project started? Sometimes the thoughts in our head are so scattered, we don’t know where to begin. Here’s a trick that my friend Paul Abbott taught me: Just start. Even if you don’t know where you’re going. Begin anyway. If it’s a story, a painting, an idea for a business venture … just dive in. Open a folder on your laptop. Give it a name. Open a file in that folder. Give it a name. Now start.…
Read MoreMarch 31, 2010, “Habit” first appeared on the site—and is revisiting the home page today as I’m on the road. Konrad Lorenz, the Nobel Prize-winning zoologist, had a pet goose that he allowed the run of the house. The first day when the goose waddled in the door, there happened to be a mirror near floor height; the goose mistook his own reflection for some rival bird and flew into attack mode.
Read MoreEarlier this year, the “Writing Wednesdays” name was switched to “Do the Work Wednesdays” for the release of the book Do the Work. This post went up May 11, 2011, soon after the book’s release. The comments that followed inspired other posts about addiction—and this reposting today. Have you ever noticed that addicts are often extremely interesting people? Addiction itself is excruciatingly boring, in that it’s so predictable. The lies, the evasions, the transparent self-justification and self-exoneration. But the addict is himself often a colorful and engrossing person. If he has been a substance abuser for any length of time, his story…
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