Read The War of Art for Free Online Page B

artistic aspiration. He defines himself by it. He is a musician, a painter, a playwright. Resistance loves this. Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him.
     
    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.
     
     
    Now consider the amateur: the aspiring painter, the wannabe playwright. How does he pursue his calling?
     
    One, he doesn’t show up every day. Two, he doesn’t show up no matter what. Three, he doesn’t stay on the job all day. He is not committed over the long haul; the stakes for him are illusory and fake. He does not get money. And he overidentifies with his art. He does not have a sense of humor about failure. You don’t hear him bitching, “This fucking trilogy is killing me!” Instead, he doesn’t write his trilogy at all.
     
    The amateur has not mastered the technique of his art. Nor does he expose himself to judgment in the real world. If we show our poem to our friend and our friend says, “It’s wonderful, I love it,” that’s not real-world feedback, that’s our friend being nice to us. Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it’s for failure.
     
    The first professional writing job I ever had, after seventeen years of trying, was on a movie called King Kong Lives . I and my partner-at-the-time, Ron Shusett (a brilliant writer and producer who also did Alien and Total Recall ) hammered out the screenplay for Dino DeLaurentiis. We loved it; we were sure we had a hit. Even after we’d seen the finished film, we were certain it was a blockbuster. We invited everyone we knew to the premiere, even rented out the joint next door for a post-triumph blowout. Get there early, we warned our friends, the place’ll be mobbed.
     
    Nobody showed. There was only one guy in line beside our guests and he was muttering something about spare change. In the theater, our friends endured the movie in mute stupefaction. When the lights came up, they fled like cockroaches into the night.
     
    Next day came the review in Variety : “. . . Ronald Shusett and Steven Pressfield; we hope these are not their real names, for their parents’ sake.” When the first week’s grosses came in, the flick barely registered. Still I clung to hope. Maybe it’s only tanking in urban areas, maybe it’s playing better in the burbs. I motored to an Edge City multiplex. A youth manned the popcorn booth. “ How’s King Kong Lives?” I asked. He flashed thumbs-down. “Miss it, man. It sucks.”
     
    I was crushed. Here I was, forty-two years old, divorced, childless, having given up all normal human pursuits to chase the dream of being a writer; now I’ve finally got my name on a big-time Hollywood production starring Linda Hamilton, and what happens? I’m a loser, a phony; my life is worthless, and so am I.
     
    My friend Tony Keppelman snapped me out of it by asking if I was gonna quit. Hell, no! “Then be happy. You’re where you wanted to be, aren’t you? So you’re taking a few blows. That’s the price for being in the arena and not on the sidelines. Stop complaining and be grateful.”
     
    That was when I realized I had become a pro. I had not yet had a success. But I had had a real failure.

 
    FOR LOVE OF THE GAME
    ----
     
    To clarify a point about professionalism: 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.
     
    The professional has learned, however, that too much love can be a bad thing. Too much love can make him choke. The seeming detachment of the professional, the cold-blooded character to his demeanor, is a compensating device to keep him from loving the game so much that he freezes in action. Playing for money,