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The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
 
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The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles (Paperback)

by Steven Pressfield (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
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The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles + The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life + Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
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  • This item: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist Steven Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance; Gates of Fire) goes self-help in The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle. Dubbing itself a cross between Sun-Tzu's The Art of War and Julie Cameron's The Artist's Way, Pressfield's book aims to help readers "overcome Resistance" so that they may achieve "the unlived life within." Whether one wishes to embark on a diet, a program of spiritual advancement or an entrepreneurial venture, it's most often resistance that blocks the way. To kick resistance, Pressfield stresses loving what one does, having patience and acting in the face of fear. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


From Library Journal

Drawing on his many years' experience as a writer, Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance) presents his first nonfiction work, which aims to inspire other writers, artists, musicians, or anyone else attempting to channel his or her creative energies. The focus is on combating resistance and living the destiny that Pressfield believes is gifted to each person by an all-powerful deity. While certainly of great value to frustrated writers struggling with writer's block, Pressfield's highly personal philosophy, soundly rooted in his own significant life challenges, has merit for anyone frustrated in fulfilling his or her life purpose. Successful photographer Ulrich (photography chair, Art Inst. of Boston; coeditor, The Visualization Manual) explores the creative impulse and presents an approach to developing creativity that, like Pressfield's, will be relevant to artists and others. He identifies and explains seven distinct stages of the creative process: discovery and encounter, passion and commitment, crisis and creative frustration, retreat and withdrawal, epiphany and insight, discipline and completion, and responsibility and release. He also develops his view of the three principles of the creative impulse, which include creative courage, being in the right place at the right time, and deepening connections with others. Rooted in Eastern philosophy, Ulrich's fully developed treatise nicely updates the solid works of Brewster Ghiselin (The Creative Process), Rollo May (The Courage To Create), and Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way). It also supplements Pressfield's inspirational thoughts on overcoming resistance through introspective questions and practical exercises that further elaborate the creative process. Both books are recommended for public libraries needing additional works on creativity. Dale Farris, Groves, TX
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
81% buy the item featured on this page:
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles 4.6 out of 5 stars (42)
CDN$ 13.83
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life
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The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life 4.8 out of 5 stars (16)
CDN$ 12.78
Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
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Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking 4.3 out of 5 stars (28)
CDN$ 11.32
Fearless Creating
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Customer Reviews

42 Reviews
5 star:
 (35)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (42 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Didn't live up to expectations, Jul 15 2004
By A Customer
After reading several glowing reviews of this book, I was eager to read it for myself in an effort to unlock my own creativity. I did enjoy the first part (dealing with Resistance) because it did a good job of describing just exactly what kinds of forces creative people are up against and how those forces manifest themselves. If the rest of the book had been that good I would have given it 4 or 5 stars. However, I thought things really went downhill from there. Pressfield could easily have squeezed all the important and useful information in this book into absolutely no more than 50 pages. And I don't mean simply compressing all the text as opposed to using the "Life's Little Instruction Book" format with often no more than a short paragraph on a page, leaving the rest of the page blank. I can understand why the book is formatted that way. What I mean is that much of the book, and especially the information after part I, struck me as being so esoteric and repetitious that it was of little use and added nothing to the book. For instance, the point that an artist should simply stop procrastinating and get to work instead of waiting for inspiration to strike is a valid one, and I think Pressfield is correct that something kind of magical happens after the process starts. However, going on and on and on about this subject for several pages was unnecessary and monotonous. Pressfield also comments several times on his disdain for "self help" programs or "workshops," yet in the end this book struck me as being precisely that. I'm not a fan of the self help craze, so I felt uncomfortable with much of this book. Overall I am still glad I read this book, if for no other reason than to glean the helpful information in part I. However, I give it just 3 stars for these reasons and because the publisher has no business putting a $12 price tag on a book this short. If you have a chance to buy this book at a used book store or borrow it from someone, it's worth your time (and it won't take much time - I finished it in one day). Otherwise you're better off saving your money.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Inspiration from a new perspective, May 22 2002
By "twalker81" (Fayetteville, AR USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The War of Art: Winning The Inner Creative Battle (Hardcover)
I picked up a copy of The War of Art after spying it on the shelf and bought it out of admiration for the author's previous works and out of curiosity about his angle on this subject.

The War of Art seems akin to the likes of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way and Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. This is very good company to be in, in my opinion.

The War of Art is a quick read and, for me, held some measure of inspiration on every page. The book's central theme is a look at the artist's (writer, painter, anyone's inner creative self) constant battle with the evil of what Pressfield personifies as Resistance. I found this particular perspective on a very familiar problem (packaged and addressed in other ways in the works I mentioned above) to be one that I could identify with and while in the course of reading it I found myself making adjustments to my thinking about my work. That's what we all hope for from books, I think, and only a few deliver on that.

Pressfield designs an entertaining reading experience with this book, too. A great for instance is his use of a line from John Wayne in the classic western film The Searchers. I knew I'd met a kindred spirit.

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5.0 out of 5 stars I Really Needed That. Trust me., Nov 2 2009
By Claude Jollet (Notre-Dame-des-Prairies, Quebec Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I saw my Self staring back at me with a big fat pregnant grin on its face. It knew it had me. I was pinned down. I could not stop reading until I was at the end.

I got slapped in the face. Hard. It did not hurt one bit. I am relieved to have found out, finally, that I knew the answers all along. I am even more relieved now because I now know precisely who was holding me back!

I have found in Steven Pressfield someone else in this world who, like me, knows for a fact that our hand is guided if we extend it, our mind is seeded if we open it, our purpose in this life is accomplished if we give it everything we've got.

I was almost there, as always.

56 Million Behind and Rising: What I Learned On My Way Up As Web Entrepreneur

"The War of Art" has given me the missing link to my Self.

I am now ready, willing and able to do what it takes. Thanks Steven.
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