Steven Pressfield Blog
The Wilderness Passage is Not Optional
You can catch the ride early or catch it late. But, like it or not, you were born with your ticket. Sooner or later, the conductor will call, “All Aboard!” and the train—with you on it—will pull out of the station.
SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES
We were supposed to get 500 hardbacks of my new book, GOVT CHEESE: A Memoir, on 12/1/22 to sign and ship to readers who had preordered. Guess what? The books are sitting on a truck in Simi Valley, California today, 1/4/23.
Wilderness in a Corner Office
You can have a great career, a loving spouse and family, the respect and envy of all who know you … and still be in the Wilderness.
Wilderness = Resistance
What are we running from when we find ourselves in the Wilderness?
The Wilderness Passage is Enacted in a Benighted State
We on our wilderness passage are blind. We’re acting out. We’re clueless.
Navigating without the stars
If you’ve ever studied land or celestial navigation, you know that both systems are based on reference points. From our frigate HMS Surprise off the coast of Patagonia, if we take a compass bearing on that headland off Rio Gallegos and another on the summit of Cerro Norte and scribe them both on a nautical chart, where the lines intersect is our position.
The Shadow in the Wilderness
Last week we talked about our passage “through the wilderness” being imbued with meaning, i.e. not random, not absurd, not shameful, not meaningless.
Wilderness = Hero’s Journey
Why do we view our ordeals “in the wilderness,” in hindsight, in such a positive light? Why do people make such statements as, “It made me who I am today,” or “Excruciating as it was in the moment, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
A Goddess at our Shoulder
We were getting a little airy-fairy in our last post, speculating that some Unseen Cosmic Force of justice compels you and me onto our ordeals “in the wilderness.”
Justice in the Wilderness
Today I want to get to my favorite—and the most provocative—phrase in that passage from the Odyssey that we’ve been examining for the past two weeks.
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.
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.
THE WAR OF ART
Read this one first.
It identifies the enemy—what I call Resistance with a capital “R,” i.e. fear, self-doubt, procrastination, perfectionism, all the forms of self-sabotage—that stop us from doing our work and realizing our dreams.
Start here.
Everything else proceeds from this.
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?"
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.
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.