Author
Steven Pressfield
The novelist who spent years unable to finish and then named the force that stops everyone: Resistance.
1 book on BookYol
The story and the impact
Steven Pressfield worked as an advertising copywriter, a screenwriter and a range of other jobs while trying and failing for years to finish a novel; his first published novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, appeared in 1995 and was followed by historical novels including Gates of Fire in 1998.
The War of Art, published in 2002, is his short account of what had stood in the way: Resistance, the force that rises against any work that matters, and the professional's stance that defeats it by showing up every day. It became a standard text for writers, founders and athletes.
He continued the theme in Do the Work in 2011 and Turning Pro in 2012, and writes a weekly column on the same subject.
The signature
Pressfield writes in short, blunt sections, often a paragraph to a page, in the voice of someone who has lost the argument with Resistance many times and reports from the other side. His signature is the capital R and the word pro: a name for the enemy and a name for the stance.