This book had some very good bits of information and insight. Unfortunately, to get to these, you'd have to wade through a shit ton of pseudo-spiritual pretentiousness that ultimately boils down to working hard at your art and following the Muse (not selling out).

Most of what is said here is neither new nor particularly interesting. It's just basic and regurgitated self-help stuff written in a very fancy and new-agey manner.

I did like the author's personal anecdotes quite a lot, though, and found them encouraging, so the book wasn't a complete waste of time. Plus it's quite short.

The author says at one point that he narrowly escaped becoming a fundamentalist (I'm paraphrasing here), and I can totally believe that that's true. Here's the actual quote:
When fundamentalism wins, the world enters a dark age.
Yet still I can't condemn one who is drawn to this philosophy.
I consider my own inner journey, the advantages I've had of
education, affluence, family support, health, and the blind
good luck to be born American, and still I have learned to
exist as an autonomous individual, if indeed I have, only by
a whisker, and at a cost I would hate to have to reckon up.

He seems to believe in all kinds of outlandish crap about artists being the vessels of some kind of heavenly dictum to bring forth the message of God and whatnot. I don't have a hard time picturing him seriously believing that humanity is fallen from some higher state of being and that people who wrote the stories of Adam and Eve (or the Bhagvad Gita) were inspired by God himself to jot his commandments down on paper.

That seemed to be pretty much a central theme of the book, though not stated in so many words, that artists don't really create anything but only bring forth what already exists in another dimension. Or something to that effect. I was skimming through most of the weird spiritual parts.

The third section of the book really did go off the deep end on this front, and the first one wasn't much better either as it only said some trite shit about personifying Resistance in a variety of very clichéd ways.

If you only read the middle third of this book and nothing else, you'd get pretty much all the useful bits that it has to offer, which isn't much. Try it out if you have some extra time on your hands, I guess.

"A vital gem ... a kick in the [yadda]."
~Esquire

Not only that! This book, and I'm 100% confident saying this, has revolutionized my outlook! The breakthrough from my much-esteemed armor of Englishness! The show and tell and display of the manikin of manikins! Literature reading and writing!

Forgive the excitement sprouting through my fingertips above! But I've always overidentified with my craft. And the realization is still kicking as I'm rereading and rewriting this right now—adding this paragraph right now!

So yes. Like them many sprawling amateurs, I've always identified with what I do—my sacred vocation has always been my sacred conviction. A shell no one is allowed to break, but witness with nothing but wonder admiration and awe. Criticism bulletproof! Or I thought it was. Immune from everyone, but my own questioning mind.

On top of it, I was all the time thinking that I was honoring this talent, the "Muse" as Pressfield says. But I wasn't! I was mystifying it, glorifying it, elevating it beyond mortal measures. I was almost abusing it, perking through the heavens, pissing off the Muse.

Esquire's statement has one tiny flaw though! It's "gems" that this book offers. The writer-wanna-be should read on the lookout. No idea where you might find one of your inner dragons lurking beneath the shadow lines, keeping you from your innermost treasures of creativity and professionalism.

The most revolutionary kick-in-the-ass I've ever read! Must-reread!

So I started reading this book and at first I felt really inspired and then confused, insulted, and offended. I won't be finishing it.

Normally I wouldn't leave a review, and I've never bothered to leave one star, but I am so irritated right now.

If you have ever been gas-lighted I do not recommend reading this book it could be triggering.

I wrote four novel and one novella all while trying to naturally manage my depression and anxiety. I finally decided it shouldn't be that hard to feel "normal" and talked to my therapist and doctor about medication. My depression and anxiety were not a form of resistance and the author dismissing mental, emotional, and physically illness is offensive.

Saying that 80% of the time doctors are dealing with patients who are making up their illnesses is insane. I personally know women whose broken bones, cysts, cancer, were ignored by doctors. This is dangerous and might prevent people from seeking medical help.

And to insinuate that if Hitler had overcome resistance to his art he wouldn't have come into power and murdered millions is beyond vile.

Not what I expected.

With so many references to this book from other books, I assumed it has to be great. And looking at the Ratings, it should've been.

So either it just went over my head, or people rate it high cause everyone else does, and successful people swear by it.

Regardless, I found myself drifting most of the time, and couldn't focus on it at all.
Ironic, since the book is trying to preach on how to concentrate / commit to something fully.

Most of what is said, seems like common knowledge. And the book doesn't teach you techniques to overcome some of these obstacles, but rather just to be able to identity them.

At least I now have the t-shirt, and can move swiftly along.

this book is basically a self-help book about confronting procrastination. pressfield begins by distinguising the behavior of an amateur from a professional artist. he believes that to be human is to be an artist and that we procrastinate because we're afraid of achieving our full potential because to do so is very hard and requires much failure. also, he references tiger woods and arnold schwarzenegger a lot.

much of what he says feels truthful; however i immediately become suspicious of a book when i find myself nodding internally. he didn't really say anything new to me, but it was nice to re-think some of those thoughts in a more organized way. also, i felt less nervous after reading this book.

Steven Pressfield uses the analogy of war (I hope it's just an analogy) for the process of writing. He pits Resistance, our human ego, against us as we attempt to write our screenplay or novel. The first chapters are grim, with all the fighting and battles and struggles in our quest to simply write. He proposes we must become Professionals, standing firm against Resistance, showing up every day, ignoring the voices in our head (our ego self) that urge us to give up.

I like Elizabeth Gilbert's take on the quest to write better, I think, but Big Magic may not work for everyone and The War of Art definitely offers a more aggressive take on the writing adventure.

I learned about this book recently from the author of Tools for Titans (Tim Ferriss). I downloaded a sample from Kindle to check it out and then immediately bought it in paperback. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is pursuing or wants to pursue a career in the arts, including writing novels. It feels like I underlined half the book out of violent agreement with what he was saying about managing the creative spirit. There were some spots where I violently disagreed, but I think he's 90% spot on. This book is similar to Napoleon Hill's 'Think and Grow Rich' and 'Outwitting the Devil' but without all the background context. I related to so much of it and it really helps with how to cope with the mental struggles of being an artist, in the arena, and how to keep up your game without getting discouraged. Author peeps - seriously. I can't recommend it enough. Health warning - the author is an ex-Marine, so expect some salty language.

How creative of a person are you? "They" say the more creative you are, the more sensitive you are. Which can mean that you don't want to get out of you bed some days, or that you have the ability to procrastinate greatly, or that you want to destroy every piece of work that you have ever created because it's crap and you'll never be as crazy as Vincent van Gogh or as cool as Michaelangelo.
Well, this book gives you tools to help you overcome all your short comings and own up to your potential as a creative member of society.

Also, nobody wants to get out of bed in the morning, it's so comfortable and cozy in there.
Let me know when we put a hybrid engine in a bed, I'll drive that to work.

Two positive stars. It was okay. Maybe I've read too many books about writing. This is one of those paragraph-a-page books with quips about writing and overcoming what stands between you and getting it done. But I didn't find those pages all that inspiring or motivating and I kept wishing for funny photographs above each paragraph to help me turn the pages. It's one of those books that would benefit from polar bears and grasshoppers sitting at typewriters or somehow illustrating the text in a humorous way. Not a bad book, but maybe just not for me.

An unusual guide to creativity that discourages navel gazing and instead suggests putting your ass in the chair.

I was initially going to give this book four stars because the esoteric final section in which Pressfield discusses the source of creative inspiration put me off a bit. He discusses the Muses and angels, and I'm always skeptical of anything that involves little pink ponies or pixie dust.

On further reflection, though, I see that Pressfield's theory that great works of art exist as intangible ideas in the universe, needing only the touch of us mere mortals to bring them to fruition, is just his way of explaining that strange state that anyone who is truly creative has experienced: The sense that we are not the actor; merely the instrument. I don't look for an explanation, I simply accept it. But when I consider that the "Eroica" and "Guernica" were definitely made by two flawed (very) human beings and yet undoubtedly belong to the ages, I begin to see the roots of this thinking. Also he quotes Blake, and Blake didn't merely have his finger in the river. He swam in it.

I also like that Pressfield says (paraphrase): "Amateurs are over-confident and cocky. Real artists are always scared to death." I think this ties in to the earlier thought, because once we've had the experience of touching the river, we always worry that it will never come again. I think this is why so many creative types are self-destructive and perhaps why, to use a fairly recent example, DFW stopped taking his meds. They blocked the channel. Desperate to get back to that place, he took an action that ultimately cost him his life.

In any case, I don't know what it is, but I know it exists; if Pressfield wants to call it angels or Muses, who am I to judge?

This book is fierce. I picked it up late one night while fighting the flu and the next morning, I was like an efficient machine. I felt extremely motivated to continue my efforts on a few projects that had been languishing on the back burner. The author shines a very bright light on that cunning, rational voice we all have that convinces us to wait, procrastinate or never start a new venture. He calls it resistance and expounds that the greater resistance you have to something, the more important it must be.

Written in concise chunks, some only a page or paragraph long, I was compelled to keep reading. The author's voice is refreshing and the ideas clear and relevant. Even though I didn’t agree %100 with a few of his statements, The War of Art definitely set me into high gear. That defeatist little voice better watch out!

What a pretentious piece of ridiculous crap.

It has:
•tHarmful, uninformed medical opinions (Why?? It's a book on creativity. Just NO.)
•tBizarre and illogical assessments of historical figures
•tCOMPLETELY FAKE STATISTICS (How did those even survive editing? You can't make figures up to back your outrageous opinions. You need real sources. They should be cited. This is the fastest way to enrage a librarian.)
•tConstant judgment (as if I can't get enough of that in small town Missouri)
•tSo much repetition I want to poke my eyes out (because I'm not an idiot and got it the first 50 times you said it)
•tAnd an exhausting, superior, egotistical attitude.

I can't believe I wasted money on such a terrible book. It can go straight to hell, where I'm sure creative folk are being forced to read it for eternity--which is about the best argument I've ever heard for salvation. And yes, that's officially the meanest thing I've ever said about any book, ever, and I don't regret it. This book earned my disdain, and I'd like to save the rest of you from a terrible reading experience.

Typically, I avoid posting one star ratings and reviews, but since this is parading about calling itself nonfiction, I have to interject to say it's nothing more than a bizarre and often offensive opinion piece, full of some very obvious statements about creativity. Don't read this drivel, unless you just enjoy judgmental, condescending monologues that go nowhere.

If you want an interesting, thoughtful book on writing and creativity, try Stephen King's ON WRITING.

UPDATE 5/16/2018: I just recently read Wired for Story by Lisa Cron, which is also good.

Pages: 190