Resist the Resistance

“It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is the sitting down to write.”  Steven Pressfield in The War of Art.

Pressfield then goes on a long explanation of what Resistance is.  Not a political movement in this case.  Rather that internal force that keeps us from doing the work that we profess to love. He has a great list of all types of activities that elicit Resistance.  My favorite is:

Any activity whose aim is tighter abdominals.

(Grin).  But true.

In the writing community (on social media), it’s rare for a day to go by without someone posting some humorous meme about all the ways we writers procrastinate…all the things that get in the way of the writing.  They are humorous in the same way most comedy is…because, we are able to see the truth in them.

Of course, they are also sad… because, we are able to see the truth in them.

Pressfield’s The War of Art is an excellent book. Like most books like these I don’t agree with it all, but there are some great takeaways to guide my journey.  One of those is that Resistance is Internal.  The world is not trying to keep me from work, Resistance just wants me to think that.

(Note: things like extreme stress, physical recovery, and grief, I do believe are worth allowing the effort to get through, before battling Resistance, because that war would be like taking a dinner knife to a gun duel.)

–TD

*I wrote this on a short break at ~1,000 words on today’s work.