Search Results: resistance
Shawn Coyne: Welcome to Part Two of The War of Art Mini-Course. My name is Shawn Coyne and I am the publisher of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. In the last episode, Steve and I discussed the concept of Resistance and of how it plagues all creative enterprise. Now let’s explore the idea even further. As the Dalai Lama says,”The enemy is a great teacher.” So this is Episode Two of The War of Art Mini-Course, “Defining the enemy.”
Read MoreShawn Coyne: Hi and welcome to The War of Art Mini-Course. My name is Shawn Coyne and I am the longtime publisher of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Now, before I bring Steve in to discuss the big ideas behind the book, I’d love to give you some context. Number one: To date, The War of Art has sold 613,752 copies in the United States alone. Number two: The War of Art is that rare kind of book that has been both what publishers like to call frontlist bestseller—and that means it’s been on all the traditional bestseller…
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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.
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“Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits.” Read this book right after The War of Art. It gets deeply into the question, “Exactly how do we overcome Resistance?”
Read MoreWhich writer are you? Check a box below. 1. I’m just starting out.
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Read this third. It takes the principles of The War of Art and Turning Pro
Read MoreIf our hero’s object is to save the world, our villain’s object is to destroy it. Whatever the protagonist wants, the antagonist wants the opposite. But it’s a little more complicated than that. Every story must have a theme. It must be about something. The theme, as Blake Snyder so helpfully declares in Save the Cat!, is the case that the story is making to the reader. Better to sacrifice oneself (or one’s personal happiness) for the greater good than to live a life of prosperous selfishness. Or We are defined by our past and cannot…
Read MoreOr even a creature. Sometimes the villain is entirely inside the characters’ (almost always the protagonist’s) head. The villain can be a fear, an obsession, a desire, a dream, a conception of reality, an idea of what “the truth” really is. The villain in Blade Runner 1978 would seem at first glance to be the replicants, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) and his team of Leon (Brion James) and Pris (Daryl Hannah), who have escaped off-world and come to Earth sowing destruction. But the real villain is an idea—the conception of creating faux-human slave labor. The replicants are actually the…
Read MoreI sometimes get asked, “Why does Resistance exist?” It’s a good question. Why did Creation include this monster? For what purpose? Just to screw us all up and make life difficult? (When I say “Resistance,” I mean in story terms “the Villain.”) Isn’t Resistance entirely negative? What possible evolutionary purpose could it serve? Here’s my answer. It might not be anybody else’s answer, but it’s mine. Resistance gives meaning to life. Or to put it in narrative terms: The villain gives meaning to the story. Think about it. If there were no villain, there’d be…
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Start with this War of Art [27-minute] mini-course. It's free. The course's five audio lessons will ground you in the principles and characteristics of the artist's inner battle.