Inspiration Through Reading - The War of Art

No matter how good you are everyone needs motivation. They are not hundreds of thousands of books, articles and websites dedicated to writer's block for no reason. Every fire needs fuel. I find mine through books, especially books written by people who have lived through it. I kept seeing The War of Art by Steven Pressfield keep popping up on people's reading lists so I thought I'd check it out.

I bought it from Barnes and Noble for my Nook, I am not a fan of Amazon's business practices and choose not to support them, Nooks all the way. Anyway, this book is not what I expected. It's far better and goes beyond just simple positive phrases to make you feel good. For me as I read this I felt truly motivated.

The style of Pressfield's writing will not be for everyone. He is up front, direct, and pulls no punches in his choice of colorful metaphors. I loved it. No P.C. frosting to get in the way of the real message he was conveying. Get off your ass and put yourself into your art. He's right. At the end of the day it's up the author to put the words on the paper and no one else. Every obstacle can be in your way but unless you are willing to overcome them then you will never achieve what you want. You will revert to the path of least resistance and never complete anything.

This is one of those books that even though I have the e-Book I will get the paper copy to have sitting on my desk. E-books have their place but so do physical books as well. I need to quickly flip through books like this, scribble notes in the margins and feel the message in my hands.

If you are working on any kind of art whether it is writing, painting, music, gardening, or anything where you need to go that extra mile and apply all of your inner self this is a book to keep that fire going. I highly recommend it.

TIme to turn the page...