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Tomorrow Morning The Critic Will Be Gone, But The Writer Will Still Be There Facing The Blank Page. Nothing Matters But That He Keep Working.

-Steven Pressfield

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Tomorrow Morning The Critic

Steven Pressfield

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Tomorrow Morning The Critic Will Be Gone, But The Writer Will Still Be There Facing The Blank Page. Nothing Matters But That He Keep Working.

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Our Job In This Lifetime Is Not To Shape Ourselves Into Some Ideal We Imagine We Ought To Be, But To Find Out Who We Already Are And Become It. If We Were Born To Paint, It’s Our Job To Become A Painter. If We Were Born To Raise And Nurture Children, It’s Our Job To Become A Mother. If We Were Born To Overthrow The Order Of Ignorance And Injustice Of The World, It’s Our Job To Realize It And Get Down To Business.

The Professional, Though He Accepts Money, Does His Work Out Of Love. He Has To Love It. Otherwise He Wouldn’t Devote His Life To It Of His Own Free Will.

Stay Stupid. Follow Your Unconventional Crazy Heart.

You Don't Need To Take A Course Or Buy A Product. All You Have To Do Is Change Your Mind.

The Professional Has Learned That Success, Like Happiness, Comes As A By-product Of Work. The Professional Concentrates On The Work And Allows Rewards To Come Or Not Come, Whatever They Like.

It's One Thing To Lie To Ourselves. It's Another Thing To Believe It.

Never Forget: This Very Moment, We Can Change Our Lives. There Never Was A Moment, And Never Will Be, When We Are Without The Power To Alter Our Destiny.

The Opposite Of Fear," Dienekes Said, "is Love.

Art Is A War - Between Ourselves And The Forces Of Self-sabotage That Would Stop Us From Doing Our Work. The Artist Is A Warrior.

Have You Ever Wondered Why The Slang Terms For Intoxication Are So Demolition-oriented? Stoned, Smashed, Hammered. It's Because They're Talking About The Ego. It's The Ego That Gets Blasted, Waxed, Plastered.

Don't Wait For Someone Else To Validate You. Validate Yourself.

Ambition, I Have Come To Believe, Is The Most Primal And Sacred And Fundament Of Our Being. To Feel Ambition And To Act Upon It Is To Embrace The Unique Calling Of Our Souls. Not To Act Upon That Ambition Is To Turn Our Backs On Ourselves And On The Reason For Our Existence.

What Force Is Yanking At Our Sleeves? This Process Of Self-revision And Self-correction Is So Common We Don't Even Notice. But It's A Miracle.

Like A Magnetized Needle Floating On A Surface Of Oil, Resistance Will Unfailingly Point To True North--meaning That Calling Or Action It Most Wants To Stop Us From Doing. We Can Use This. We Can Use It As A Compass. We Can Navigate By Resistance, Letting It Guide Us To That Calling Or Action That We Must Follow Before All Others. Rule Of Thumb: The More Important A Call Or Action Is To Our Soul's Evolution, The More Resistance We Will Feel Toward Pursuing It.

The Kabbalah Describes Angels As Bundles Of Light, Meaning Intelligence, Consciousness. Kabbalists Believe That Above Every Blade Of Grass Is An Angel Crying "grow! Grow!" ... I Believe That Above The Entire Human Race Is One Super-angel, Crying "evolve! Evolve!"

Always Attack. Even In Defense, Attack. The Attacking Arm Possesses The Initiative And Thus Commands The Action. To Attack Makes Men Brave; To Defend Makes Them Timorous.

The Song We’re Composing Already Exists In Potential. Our Work Is To Find It.

Next Morning I Went Over To Paul’s For Coffee And Told Him I Had Finished. “good For You,” He Said Without Looking Up. “start The Next One Today.

The Professional Tackles The Project That Will Make Him Stretch. He Takes On The Assignment That Will Bear Him Into Uncharted Waters, Compel Him To Explore Unconscious Parts Of Himself. Is He Scared? Hell, Yes. He's Petrified.

Uncharted Waters

The Artist And The Fundamentalist Both Confront The Same Issue, The Mystery Of Their Existence As Individuals.

I Love Memoirs, Particularly Obscure Ones Because The Writer Is Usually A Regular Guy Just Telling What Happened To Him And To His Friends. What These Tales Lack In Artfulness They Make Up For In Passion And Authenticity. For A Writer Of Fiction, They Are Solid Gold. I Have Stolen So Much From Memoirs It's Ridiculous.

Playing The Game For Money Produces The Proper Professional Attitude. It Inculcates The Lunch-pail State Of Mind That Shows Up For Work Despite Rain Or Snow Or Dark Of Night And Slugs It Out Day After Day.

Cousin, The Days Of Gods And Heroes Are Over." "not To Me. Not To Them.

Turning Pro Is A Mindset. If We Are Struggling With Fear, Self-sabotage, Procrastination, Self-doubt, Etc., The Problem Is, We’re Thinking Like Amateurs. Amateurs Don’t Show Up. Amateurs Crap Out. Amateurs Let Adversity Defeat Them. The Pro Thinks Differently. He Shows Up, He Does His Work, He Keeps On Truckin’, No Matter What.

Procrastination

The More Scared We Are Of A Work Or Calling, The More Sure We Can Be That We Have To Do It.

Seeking Support From Friends And And Family Is Like Having People Gathered Around At Your Deathbed. It's Nice, But When The Ship Sails, All They Can Do Is Stand On The Dock Waving Goodbye.

We Show Up. We Do Our Best. Good Things Happen.

Its [resistance] Aim Is To Shove Us Away, Distract Us From Doing Our Work.

Artists, Writers And People In Creative Fields Are Entrepreneurs By Necessity. Nobody Gives Them A Paycheck Or Picks Up Their Medical Insurance. The Ones Who Succeed Learn To Think And Act Like 'independent Operators.' I Think People Who Are Technically 'employees' Have To Think This Way As Well. The Company Is Not Looking Out For You.

We Are All Warriors. Each Of Us Struggles Every Day To Define And Defend Our Sense Of Purpose And Integrity, To Justify Our Existence On The Planet And To Understand, If Only Within Our Own Hearts, Who We Are And What We Believe In.

The Last Element In Drama Is High Stakes. War, Of Course, Is Life And Death - Survival, Not Only For The Story's Characters, But Often For The Society Itself. That's Why I'm Drawn To Stories That Are Built Around Wars, Even If They're Not Technically "war Stories."

The Difference Between An Amateur And A Professional Is In Their Habits. An Amateur Has Amateur Habits. A Professional Has Professional Habits. We Can Never Free Ourselves From Habit. But We Can Replace Bad Habits With Good Ones.

I Was Keenly Conscious Of The Comrades-in-arms Who Had Fallen With Me. A Bond Surpassing By A Hundredfold That Which I Had Known In Life Bound Me To Them. I Felt A Sense Of Inexpressible Relief And Realized That I Had Feared, More Than Death, Separation From Them. I Apprehended That Excruciating War Survivor's Torment, The Sense Of Isolation And Self-betrayal Experienced By Those Who Had Elected To Cling Yet To Breath When Their Comrades Had Let Loose Their Grip.

Thr Principle Of Organization Is Built Into Nature. Chaos Itself Is Self-organizing. Out Of Primordial Disorder, Stars Find Their Orbit; Rivers Make Their Way To The Sea.

Many Pedestrians Have Been Maimed Or Killed At The Intersection Of Resistance And Commerce.

Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be.

You Are A Writer When You Tell Yourself You Are. No One Else's Opinion Matters. Screw Them. You Are When You Say You Are.

The More Fear We Feel About A Specific Enterprise, The More Certain We Can Be That That Enterprise Is Important To Us And To The Growth Of Our Soul.

Nothing Fires The Warrior’s Heart More With Courage Than To Find Himself And His Comrades At The Point Of Annihilation, At The Brink Of Being Routed And Overrun, And Then To Dredge Not Merely From One’s Own Bowels Or Guts But From One’s Discipline And Training The Presence Of Mind Not To Panic, Not To Yield To The Possession Of Despair, But Instead To Complete Those Homely Acts Of Order Which Dienekes Had Ever Declared The Supreme Accomplishment Of The Warrior: To Perform The Commonplace Under Far-from-commonplace Conditions.

Is There A Spiritual Element To Creativity? Hell, Yes. Our Mightiest Ally (our Indispensable Ally) Is Belief In Something We Cannot See, Hear, Touch, Taste, Or Feel.

Resistance Cannot Be Seen, Touched, Heard, Or Smelled. But It Can Be Felt.

Resistance In My Experience Always Kicks In When You're Trying To Move From A Lower Level To A Higher Level Or To Identify With A Braver Part Of Yourself Or Your Higher Nature. So It's That Negative Repelling Force. It's Kind Of The Dragon That We Have To Slay Every Day If We're Artists Or Entrepreneurs.

Evolution Has Programmed Us To Feel Rejection In Our Guts. This Is How The Tribe Inforced Obedience, By Wielding The Threat Of Expulsion. Fear Of Rejection Isn't Just Psychological; It's Biological. It's In Our Cells.

Sometimes, When We're Terrified Of Embracing Our True Calling, We'll Pursue A Shadow Calling Instead. That Shadow Career Is A Metaphor For Our Real Career. Its Shape Is Similar, Its Contours Feel Tantalizingly The Same. But A Shadow Career Entails No Real Risk. If We Fail At A Shadow Career, The Consequences Are Meaningless To Us. Are You Pursuing A Shadow Career?

The Artist Must Be Like That Marine. He Has To Know How To Be Miserable. He Has To Love Being Miserable. He Has To Take Pride In Being More Miserable Than Any Soldier Or Swabbie Or Jet Jockey. Because This Is War, Baby. And War Is Hell.

...she (the Artist, The Writer) Doesn't Wait For Inspiration, She Acts In The Anticipation Of Its Apparition.

Figure Out What Scares You The Most And Do That First.

You Have Never Tasted Freedom, Friend, Or You Would Know It Is Purchased Not With Gold, But Steel.

If We Were Born To Overthrow The Order Of Ignorance And Injustice Of The World, It’s Our Job To Realize It And Get Down To Business.

No Industry Is Immune And No Occupation Is Safe. All Of Us Need To Begin To Think In Terms Of Our Own Inner Strengths, Our Resilience And Resourcefulness, Our Capacity To Adapt And To Rely Upon Ourselves And Our Families.

Resistance Will Tell You Anything To Keep You From Doing Your Work.

The Gnostics Believed That Exile Was The Essential Condition Of Man. Do You Agree? I Do. The Artist And The Addict Both Wrestle With This Experience Of Exile. They Share An Acute, Even Excruciating Sensitivity To The State Of Separation And Isolation, And Both Actively Seek A Way To Overcome It, To Transcend It, Or At Least To Make The Pain Go Away. What Is The Pain Of Being Human? It's The Condition Of Being Suspended Between Two Worlds And Being Unable To Fully Enter Into Either.

Defeating Resistance Is Like Giving Birth. It Seems Absolutely Impossible Until You Remember That Women Have Been Pulling It Off Successfully, With Support And Without, For Fifty Million Years.

The Professional Dedicates Himself To Mastering Technique Not Because He Believes Technique Is A Substitute For Inspiration But Because He Wants To Be In Possession Of The Full Arsenal Of Skills When Inspiration Does Come. The Professional Is Sly. He Knows That By Toiling Beside The Front Door Of Technique, He Leaves Room For Genius To Enter By The Back.

The Artist Cannot Look To Others To Validate His Efforts Or His Calling. If You Don't Believe Me, Ask Van Gogh, Who Produced Masterpiece After Masterpiece And Never Found A Buyer In His Whole Life.

Traditional Publishers Will Be Dominant, And They Should Be Because They Really Do Assure Quality. But Ebooks, Which Are Huge Already, Are Going To Eclipse Everything. They Will Save Traditional Publishing The Way Dvds Saved Movie Studios (for A While) And They'll Greatly Expand The Number Of Readers.

The Professional Will Not Tolerate Disorder... He Wants The Carpet Vacuumed And The Threshold Swept, So The Muse May Enter And Not Soil Her Gown.

Our Enemy Is Not Lack Of Preparation; It’s Not The Difficulty Of The Project Or The State Of The Marketplace Or The Emptiness Of Our Bank Account. The Enemy Is Our Chattering Brain, Which, If We Give It So Much As A Nanosecond, Will Start Producing Excuses, Alibis, Transparent Self-justifications And A Million Reasons Why We Can’t/shouldn’t/won’t Do What We Know We Need To Do.

When We Conquer Our Fears, We Discover A Boundless, Bottomless, Inexhaustible Well Of Passion.

Be Too Dumb To Quit And Too Stubborn To Back Off.

He Who Whets His Steel, Whets His Courage

No Matter How Great A Writer, Artist, Or Entrepreneur, He Is A Mortal, He Is Fallible. He Is Not Proof Against Resistance. He Will Drop The Ball; He Will Crash. That’s Why They Call It Rewriting.

This Is The Other Secret That Real Artists Know And Wannabe Writers Don’t. When We Sit Down Each Day And Do Our Work, Power Concentrates Around Us. The Muse Takes Note Of Our Dedication. She Approves. We Have Earned Favor In Her Sight. When We Sit Down And Work, We Become Like A Magnetized Rod That Attracts Iron Filings. Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.

The Only Intercourse Possible Between The Knight And The Dragon Is Battle.

There's A Secret That Real Writers Know That Wannabe Writers Don't, And The Secret Is This: It's Not The Writing Part That's Hard. What's Hard Is Sitting Down To Write. What Keeps Us From Sitting Down Is Resistance.

The Most Pernicious Aspect Of Procrastination Is That It Can Become A Habit. We Don't Just Put Off Our Lives Today; We Put Them Off Till Our Deathbed.

Procrastination

I Wrote In The War Of Art That I Could Divide My Life Neatly Into Two Parts: Before Turning Pro And After. After Is Better.

Look In Your Own Heart. Unless I'm Crazy, Right Now A Still Small Voice Is Piping Up, Telling You As It Has Ten Thousand Times, The Calling That Is Yours And Yours Alone. You Know It. No One Has To Tell You. And Unless I'm Crazy, You're No Closer To Taking Action On It Than You Were Yesterday Or Will Be Tomorrow. You Think Resistance Isn't Real? Resistance Will Bury You.

Resistance Really Takes The Shape, For Me, In Voices In My Head Telling Me Why I Can't Do Something Or Why I Should Put It Off For Another Day, Procrastinate For Another Day.

Fear Is Good. Like Self-doubt, Fear Is An Indicator. Fear Tells Us What We Have To Do. Remember Our Rule Of Thumb: The More Scared We Are Of A Work Or Calling, The More Sure We Can Be That We Have To Do It. Resistance Is Experienced As Fear; The Degree Of Fear Equates To The Strength Of Resistance. Therefore The More Fear We Feel About A Specific Enterprise, The More Certain We Can Be That That Enterprise Is Important To Us And To The Growth Of Our Soul. That's Why We Feel So Much Resistance. If It Meant Nothing To Us, There'd Be No Resistance.

Most Of Us Have Two Lives. The Life We Live, And The Unlived Life Within Us. Between The Two Stands Resistance.

When We See Others Beginning To Live Their Authentic Selves, It Drives Us Crazy If We Have Not Lived Out Our Own.

As Resistance Works To Keep Us From Becoming Who We Were Born To Be, Equal And Opposite Powers Are Counterpoised Against It. These Are Our Allies And Angels.

A Cavalryman's Horse Should Be Smarter Than He Is. But The Horse Must Never Be Alowed To Know This.

We Will Have To Choose Between The Life We Want For Our Future And The Life We Have Left Behind.

Creative Work Is Not A Selfish Act Or A Bid For Attention On The Part Of The Actor. It's A Gift To The World And Every Being In It. Don't Cheat Us Of Your Contribution. Give Us What You've Got.

As Artists And Professionals, It Is Our Obligation To Enact Our Own Internal Revolution, A Private Insurrection Inside Our Own Skulls. In This Uprising We Free Ourselves From The Tyranny Of Consumer Culture.

When We Turn Pro We Stop Running From Our Fears. We Turn Around And Face Them.

Do We Have To Stare Death In The Face To Make Us Stand Up And Confront Resistance?

One Thing I've Found In Any Project Is Almost Universally About Three Quarters Of The Way Through - Or Maybe A Little Father, Maybe Seventh Eighths On The Way Through - Any Project Will Explode.

The Most Pernicious Aspect Of Procrastination Is That It Can Become A Habit. We Don't Just Put Off Our Lives Today; We Put Them Off Till Our Deathbed. Never Forget: This Very Moment, We Can Change Our Lives. There Never Was A Moment, And Never Will Be, When We Are Without The Power To Alter Our Destiny. This Second We Can Turn The Tables On Resistance. This Second, We Can Sit Down And Do Our Work.

Procrastination

When You're A Working Writer, Sooner Or Later Friends And Acquaintances Will Get You Alone And Confide That They, Too, Have A Book In Them.

Sooner Or Later

Persian Envoy "our Arrows Will Black Out The Sun..." Dienekes Of The Spartans.."good, Then We'll Fight In The Shade.

Resistance Is Directly Proportional To Love. If You’re Feeling Massive Resistance, The Good News Is, It Means There’s Tremendous Love There Too. If You Didn’t Love The Project That Is Terrifying You, You Wouldn’t Feel Anything. The Opposite Of Love Isn’t Hate; It’s Indifference.

The Amateur Believes He Must First Overcome His Fear; Then He Can Do His Work. The Professional Knows That Fear Can Never Be Overcome. He Knows There Is No Such Thing As A Fearless Warrior Or A Dread-free Artist.

Go Tell The Spartans, Stranger Passing By, That Here Obedient To Their Laws We Lie.

The Instinct That Pulls Us Toward Art Is The Impulse To Evolve, To Learn, To Heighten And Elevate Our Consciousness. The Ego Hates This. Because The More Awake We Become, The Less We Need The Ego.

Resistance Is Greatest Just Before The Finish Line.

There's A Phrase You Hear In Israel: "we're Not Jews, We're Israelis." What That Means Is That The Stereotype We're Familiar With Here In The States Of The Diaspora Jew, I.e. Jews In America Or Europe Or Russia, Etc. Does Not Fit At All With The Reality Of The Homegrown "sabras" Of Israel.

The Most Important Thing About Art Is To Work. Nothing Else Matters Except Sitting Down Every Day And Trying. Why Is This Important? Because When We Sit Down Day After Day And Keep Grinding, Something Mysterious Starts To Happen. A Process Is Set In Motion By Which, Inevitably And Infallibly, Heaven Comes To Our Aid. Unseen Forces Enlist In Our Cause; Serendipity Reinforces Our Purpose.

Concerning All Acts Of Initiative There Is One Elementary Truth, The Ignorance Of Which Kills Countless Ideas And Splendid Plans: That The Moment One Definitely Commits Oneself, Then Providence Moves Too.

The Spartans Say That Any Army May Win While It Still Has Legs Under It; The Real Test Comes When All Strength Is Fled And The Men Must Produce Victory On Will Alone.

Resistance Cannot Be Seen, Touched, Heard, Or Smelled. But It Can Be Felt. We Experince It As An Energy Field Radiating From A Work-in-potential... Its Aim Is To Shove Us Away, Distract Us, Prevent Us From Doing Our Work.

The Professional Respects His Craft. He Does Not Consider Himself Superior To It. He Recognizes The Contributions Of Those Who Have Gone Before Him. He Apprentices Himself To Them.

Ignorance And Arrogance Are The Artist's And Entrepreneur's Indispensable Allies. She Must Be Clueless Enough To Have No Idea How Difficult Her Enterprise Is Going To Be And Cocky Enough To Believe She Can Pull It Off Anyway."

The Last Thing We Want Is To Remain As We Are.

If You're Are Paralyzed With Fear It's A Good Sign. It Shows You What You Have To Do.

The Great Thing About Writing About The Ancient Spartans Or Athenians Is That So Much Knowledge Is No Longer Extant That No One, Except Maybe A Cambridge Or Oxford Don, Can Call You Out And Prove You Wrong.

When A Warrior Fights Not For Himself, But For His Brothers, When His Most Passionately Sought Goal Is Neither Glory Nor His Own Life's Preservation, But To Spend His Substance For Them, His Comrades, Not To Abandon Them, Not To Prove Unworthy Of Them, Then His Heart Truly Has Achieved Contempt For Death, And With That He Transcends Himself And His Actions Touch The Sublime. That Is Why The True Warrior Cannot Speak Of Battle Save To His Brothers Who Have Been There With Him. The Truth Is Too Holy, Too Sacred, For Words." -suicide (gates Of Fire)

Rule Of Thumb: The More Important A Call Or Action Is To Our Soul's Evolution, The Resistance We Will Feel Toward Pursuing It.

Picasso Painted With Passion, Mozart Composed With It. A Child Plays With It All Day Long. You May Think You’ve Lost Your Passion, Or That You Can’t Identify It, Or That You Have So Much Of It, It Threatens To Overwhelm You. None Of These Is True.

We’re All Pros Already. 1) We Show Up Every Day 2) We Show Up No Matter What 3) We Stay On The Job All Day 4) We Are Committed Over The Long Haul 5) The Stakes For Us Are High And Real 6) We Accept Remuneration For Our Labor 7) We Do Not Overidentify With Our Jobs 8 ) We Master The Technique Of Our Jobs 9) We Have A Sense Of Humor About Our Jobs 10) We Receive Praise Or Blame In The Real World

The Problem I've Always Discovered In My Own Work When This Kind Of Thing Happens When You Hit The Wall Is There's Almost Always A Reason. You've Almost Always Made A Mistake In The Initial Conception Of The Project. You Misapprehended Something Or You Thought Something Would Work And Now You're Three Quarters On The Way Through And You See That It Doesn't Work.

The Working Artist Will Not Tolerate Trouble In Her Life Because She Knows Trouble Prevents Her From Doing Her Work. The Working Artist Banishes From Her World All Sources Of Trouble. She Harnesses The Urge For Trouble And Transforms It In Her Work.

Of Any Activity You Do, Ask Yourself: If I Were The Last Person On Earth, Would I Still Do It?

In The Hierarchy, The Artist Faces Outward. Meeting Someone New He Asks Himself, What Can This Person Do For Me? How Can This Person Advance My Standing? In The Hierarchy, The Artist Looks Up And Looks Down. The One Place He Can't Look Is That Place He Must: Within.

Meeting Someone

When We Sit Down Each Day And Do Our Work, Power Concentrates Around Us... Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.

It Is One Thing To Study War And Another To Live The Warrior's Life.

I Believe In Previous Lives And The Muse—and That Books And Music Exist Before They Are Written And That They Are Propelled Into Material Being By Their Own Imperative To Be Born, Via The Offices Of Those Willing Servants Of Discipline, Imagination And Inspiration Whom We Call Artists.

Fear Doesn't Go Away. The Warrior And The Artist Live By The Same Code Of Necessity, Which Dictates That The Battle Must Be Fought Anew Every Day.

It Can Pay Off, Being A Hack. Given The Depraved State Of American Culture, A Slick Dude Can Make Millions Being A Hack. But Even If You Succeed, You Lose, Because You’ve Sold Out Your Muse, And Your Muse Is You, The Best Part Of Yourself, Where Your Finest And Only True Work Comes From.

This Man Has Conquered The World! What Have You Done?" The Philosopher Replied Without An Instant's Hesitation, "i Have Conquered The Need To Conquer The World.

Conquer The World

It’s Not The Writing Part That’s Hard. What’s Hard Is Sitting Down To Write.

I Am Going To Write My Symphony; I'm Just Going To Start Tomorrow.

Writers Think In Metaphors. Editors Work In Metaphors. A Great Reader Reads In Metaphors. All Are Continually Asking, "what Does This Represent? What Does It Stand For?" They Are Trying To Take Everything One Level Deeper. When They Get To That Level, They Will Try To Go Deeper Again.

The Amateur Has A Long List Of Fears. Near The Top Are Two: Solitude And Silence. The Amateur Fears Solitude And Silence Because She Needs To Avoid, At All Costs, The Voice Inside Her Head That Would Point Her Toward Her Calling And Her Destiny. So She Seeks Distraction. The Amateur Prizes Shallowness And Shuns Depth. The Culture Of Twitter And Facebook Is Paradise For The Amateur.

Do You Love Your Idea? Does It Feel Right On Instinct? Are You Willing To Bleed For It?

I Had Always Been An Enthusiastic Reader Of Stuff About Ancient Greece. I Would Read Herodotus And Thucydides Just For Fun.

The Professional Does Not Wait For Inspiration; He Acts In Anticipation Of It.

It’s Better To Be In The Arena, Getting Stomped By The Bull, Than To Be Up In The Stands Or Out In The Parking Lot.

We Come Into This World With A Specific, Personal Destiny. We Have A Job To Do, A Calling To Enact, A Self To Become. We Are Who We Are From The Cradle, And We're Stuck With It.

Long-term, We Must Begin To Build Our Internal Strengths. It Isn't Just Skills Like Computer Technology. It's The Old-fashioned Basics Of Self-reliance, Self-motivation, Self-reinforcement, Self-discipline, Self-command.

Resistance Is Experienced As Fear; The Degree Of Fear Equates To The Strength Of Resistance.

When We're Living As Amateurs, We're Running Away From Our Calling - Meaning Our Work, Our Destiny, The Obligation To Become Our Truest And Highest Selves.

The Amateur Tweets. The Pro Works.

Artists Are Modest. They Know They're Not Doing The Work; They're Just Taking Dictation.

Our Job In This Lifetime Is Not To Shape Ourselves Into Some Ideal We Imagine We Ought To Be, But To Find Out Who We Already Are And Become It.

Resistance Is Not A Peripheral Opponent. Resistance Arises From Within. It Is Self-generated And Self-perpetuated. Resistance Is The Enemy Within.

I'm Superstitious. I Keep Mum While I'm Working On Something.

The Most Important Thing About Art Is To Work. Nothing Else Matters Except Sitting Down Every Day And Trying.

Positive Thinking

We Feed It [resistance] With Power By Our Fear Of It. Master That Fear And We Conquer Resistance.

Playing For Money, Or Adopting The Attitude Of One Who Plays For Money, Lowers The Fever.

The Professional Learns To Recognize Envy-driven Criticism And To Take It For What It Is: The Supreme Compliment. The Critic Hates Most That Which He Would Have Done Himself If He Had Had The Guts.

Making A Judgment, Taking A Stand And Then Acting Against An Injustice Or Acting To Support Excellence Is The Stuff Of The Everyman Hero. If You Are An Aspiring Artist And You Wish To Avoid “judgments,” You'll Find That You Have Nothing To Say.

The Highest Treason A Crab Can Commit Is To Make A Leap For The Rim Of The Bucket.

Are You Paralyzed With Fear? That’s A Good Sign. Fear Is Good. Like Self-doubt, Fear Is An Indicator. Fear Tells Us What We Have To Do. Remember One Rule Of Thumb: The More Scared We Are Of A Work Or Calling, The More Sure We Can Be That We Have To Do It.

The Artist Committing Himself To His Calling Has Volunteered For Hell, Whether He Knows It Or Not. He Will Be Dining For The Duration On A Diet Of Isolation, Rejection, Self-doubt, Despair, Ridicule, Contempt, And Humiliation.

When We Make Our Art A Practice, When We Make Our Workspace Sacred And Enter It Daily With Respect And High Intention, Then We Elevate Our Actions (even If They're Taking Place Within The Profane Arena Of Commerce) Beyond Ego And Above Gimme-gimme Ambition.

To Labor In The Arts For Any Reason Other Than Love Is Prostitution.

The More You Love Your Art/ Calling/ Enterprise, The More Important Its Accomplishment To The Evolution Of Your Soul, The More You Will Fear It And The More Resistance You Will Experience Facing It.

The Professional Conducts His Business In The Real World. Adversity, Injustice, Bad Hops And Rotten Calls, Even Good Breaks And Lucky Bounces All Comprise The Ground Over Which The Campaign Must Be Waged. The Field Is Level, The Professional Understands, Only In Heaven.

The Hero Wanders, The Hero Suffers, The Hero Returns. You Are That Hero.

We Fear Discovering That We Are More Than We Think We Are. More Than Our Parents/children/teachers Think We Are. We Fear That We Actually Possess The Talent That Our Still, Small Voice Tells Us. That We Actually Have The Guts, The Perseverance, The Capacity. We Fear That We Truly Can Steer Our Ship, Plant Our Flag, Reach Our Promised Land. We Fear This Because, If It’s True, Then We Become Estranged From All We Know. We Pass Through A Membrane. We Become Monsters And Monstrous.

When A Novelist Or Screenwriter Is Looking For A Subject, The Element He's Seeking Is Conflict. Conflict Makes Drama. Conflict Produces Great Characters And Memorable Scenes. So War Is A Natural Topic.

A Contemporary Or Near-future Book Is Much Harder Because You Can't Fake The Facts. There Are People Alive Who Know Much More Than You Do About The Subject. You Have To Really Have Your Research Together - And Of Course No One Can Know Everything About A Topic.

Don't Prepare. Begin. Our Enemy Is Not Lack Of Preparation. The Enemy Is Resistance, Our Chattering Brain Producing Excuses. Start Before You Are Ready.

Slay That Dragon Once, And He Will Never Have Power Over You Again.

Research Can Become Resistance. We Want To Work, Not Prepare To Work.

On The Field Of The Self Stand A Knight And A Dragon. You Are The Knight. Resistance Is The Dragon.

A Great Trick That I Learned Having Worked As A Screenwriter For Many Years, The Way Screenwriters Work, Is They Break The Project Down Into Three-act Structure: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. I Think That Is A Great Way To Break Down Any Project, Whether It's A New Business Or Anything At All.

Tomorrow Morning The Critic Will Be Gone, But The Writer Will Still Be There Facing The Blank Page. Nothing Matters But That He Keep Working.

These Are Not Easy Questions. Who Am I? Why Am I Here? They're Not Easy Because The Human Being Isn't Wired To Function As An Individual.

Don't Cheat The World Of Your Contribution. Give It What You've Got.

To Feel Ambition And To Act Upon It Is To Embrace The Unique Calling Of Our Souls.

The Professional Does Not Permit Himself To Become Hidebound Within One Incarnation, However Comfortable Or Successful. Like A Transmigrating Soul, He Shucks His Outworn Body And Dons A New One. He Continues His Journey.

Fame Imperishable And Glory That Will Never Die -- That Is What We March For!

We're Wrong If We Think We're The Only Ones Struggling With Resistance. Everyone Who Has A Body Experiences Resistance.

Resistance Is Implacable, Intractable, Indefatigable.

If You Find Yourself Asking Yourself (and Your Friends), "am I Really A Writer? Am I Really An Artist?" Chances Are You Are. The Counterfeit Innovator Is Wildly Self-confident. The Real One Is Scared To Death.

Socrates Demonstrated Long Ago, That The Truly Free Individual Is Free Only To The Extent Of His Own Self-mastery.

A Horse Must Be A Bit Mad To Be A Good Cavalry Mount, And Its Rider Must Be Completely So.

The Essence Of Professionalism Is The Focus Upon The Work And Its Demands, While We Are Doing It, To The Exclusion Of All Else.

Fear Doesn't Go Away. The Battle Must Be Fought Anew Every Day.

Don't Prepare, Do. Don't Let Resistance Sucker You Into Wasting Months On Background, Foundation, Planning. All That Can Come Later.

The Part We Create From Can't Be Touched By Anything Our Parents Did, Or Society Did. That Part Is Unsullied, Uncorrupted; Soundproof, Waterproof, And Bulletproof. In Fact, The More Troubles We've Got, The Better And Richer That Part Becomes.

The Counterfeit Innovator Is Wildly Self-confident. The Real One Is Scared To Death.

That’s Why An Artist Must Be A Warrior And, Like All Warriors, Artists Over Time Acquire Modesty And Humility. They May, Some Of Them, Conduct Themselves Flamboyantly In Public. But Alone With The Work They Are Chaste And Humble. They Know They Are Not The Source Of The Creations They Bring Into Being. They Only Facilitate. They Carry. They Are The Willing And Skilled Instruments Of The Gods And Goddesses They Serve.

Do I Really Believe That My Work Is Crucial To The Planet's Survival? Of Course Not. But It's As Important To Me As Catching That Mouse Is To The Hawk Circling Outside My Window. He's Hungry. He Needs A Kill. So Do I.

Courage Is Inseparable From Love And Leads To What May Arguably Be The Noblest Of All Warrior Virtues: Selflessness.

But Nothing Really Clicked For Me Until I Gave Up Completely On Hitting The Overlap And Just Did What I Loved, Even When I Thought Nobody Else In The World Would Be Interested.

You And I May Only Be Mortals, With All The Foolishness And Fallibility That That State Implies, But We're Mortals Made In The Image Of Heaven. The Gods Can't Do Their Work Without Us. So Let's Be Bold, In Their Cause And In Our Own. It's Our Job, We Humans, To Make Manifest That Which Is Unmanifest-and To Raise Into Consciousness, In This Material Dimension, That Which Had Been Known Before Only In Heaven.

Resistance’s Goal Is Not To Wound Or Disable. Resistance Aims To Kill

The Critic Hates Most That Which He Would Have Done Himself If He Had Had The Guts.

When We Are Succeeding - That Is, When We Have Begun To Overcome Our Self-doubt And Self-sabotage, When We Are Advancing In Our Craft And Evolving To A Higher Level - That's When Panic Strikes. When We Experience Panic, It Means That We're About To Cross A Threshold. We're Poised On The Doorstep Of A Higher Plane.

To Yield To Resistance Deforms Our Spirit. It Stunts Us And Makes Us Less Than We Are And Were Born To Be.

Every Artist Has To Face His Own Demons And Evolve His Own Method Of Working.

We Must Do Our Work For Its Own Sake, Not For Fortune Or Attention Or Applause.

Contempt For Failure Is Our Cardinal Virtue.

When We Sit Down To Work, We Become Like A Magnetized Rod That Attracts Iron Filings. Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.

Start Before You’re Ready.

The Best And Only Thing That One Artist Can Do For Another Is To Serve As An Example And An Inspiration.

Someone Once Asked Somerset Maughham If He Wrote On A Schedule Or Only When Struck By Inspiration. "i Write Only When Inspiration Strikes," He Replied. "fortunately It Strikes Every Morning At Nine O'clock Sharp.

The Professional Arms Himself With Patience, Not Only To Give The Stars Time To Align In His Career, But To Keep Himself From Flaming Out In Each Individual Work.

The Principle Of Priority States (a) You Must Know The Difference Between What Is Urgent And What Is Important, And (b) You Must Do What’s Important First.

The Awakening An Artist Must Be Ruthless, Not Only With Herself But With Others.

The Athlete Knows The Day Will Never Come When He Wakes Up Pain-free. He Has To Play Hurt.

If You Were Meant To Cure Cancer Or Crack Cold Fusion And You Don't Do It, You Not Only Hurt Yourself, Even Destroy Yourself. You Hurt Your Children, You Hurt Me, You Hurt The Planet. You Shame The Angels Who Watch Over You And You Spite God Almighty, Who Created You And Only You With Your Unique Gifts, For The Sole Purpose Of Nudging The Human Race One Millimeter Further Along Its Path Back To God.

Late At Night Have You Experienced A Vision Of The Person You Might Become, The Work You Could Accomplish, The Realized Being You Were Meant To Be? Are You A Writer Who Doesn't Write, A Painter Who Doesn't Paint, An Entrepreneur Who Never Starts A Venture? Then You Know What Resistance Is.

A Work-in-progress Generates Its Own Energy Field. You, The Artist Or Entrepreneur, Are Pouring Love Into The Work; You Are Suffusing It With Passion And Intention And Hope.

Start Before You’re Ready. Good Things Happen When We Start Before We’re Ready.

Our Greatest Battle Is To Become Ourselves, In The Face Of Adversity.

The Professional Loves Her Work. She Is Invested In It Wholeheartedly. But She Does Not Forget That The Work Is Not Her.

F@*# Self-doubt. I Despise It. I Hold It In Contempt, Along With The Hell-spawned Ooze-pit Of Resistance From Which It Crawled. I Will Never Back Off. I Will Never Give The Work Anything Less Than 100%. If I Go Down In Flames, So Be It. I'll Be Back.

Right Now With Blogs And The Flood Of Internet Access, A Multitude Of Aspiring Writers Think They're Ready For Prime Time. They're Not. Be Great. Read. Write. Bust Your Ass. Learn And Find Your Voice. As Hard As You Think It Is, It's A Hundred Times Harder.

The Sign Of The Amateur Is Overglorification Of And Preoccupation With The Mystery. The Professional Shuts Up. She Doesn't Talk About It. She Does Her Work.

We Cannot Let External Criticism, Even If It's True, Fortify Our Internal Foe. That Foe Is Strong Enough Already.

The Professional Is Acutely Aware Of The Intangibles That Go Into Inspiration. Out Of Respect For Them, She Lets Them Work. She Grants Them Their Sphere While She Concentrates On Hers.

In Other Words, Any Act That Rejects Immediate Gratification In Favor Of Long-term Grown, Health, Or Integrity. Or, Expressed Another Way, Any Act That Derives From Our High Nature Instead Of Our Lower. Any Of These Will Elicit Resistance.

In My Experience, Depth Of Work Consists Of Two Components. The First Is Recklessness; The Second Is Discipline. Dionysian; Apollonian. Passion;reason.

There Is An Enemy. There Is An Intelligent, Active, Malign Force Working Against Us. Step One Is To Recognize This. This Recognition Alone Is Enormously Powerful. It Saved My Life, And It Will Save Yours.

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Frances McDormand

N. Scott Momaday

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