Personal Blogs

In the bath each morning with an iPad

Reading, noting, posting blog entiries such as this.

On the bus into Brighton. Composing or preparing a longer blog entry, locating a URL, for example to a BBC iPlayer radio programme I wish to cite or doing the all important referencing bit - so that I, let alone others, can go take a look themselves.

Stiil with the iPad after work with a pad of paper and pen alongside (or directly into my wife's laptop or son's desktop). With the Kindle, highlighting, adding notes and sharing some into Twitter.

With the iPad (the same). Write using the App AIWriter.

Various tools for charts, infigrwphics, wordles and mindmaps. Screem grab and photos with the iPad the uploaded to PicasaWeb.

The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle

by Steven Pressfield

The key word through-out ‘The War of Art’ is ‘Resistance’ – i.e. that which prevents us from doing.

Steven Pressfield’s advice is to sit down and do it like a pro.

That’s the book in two lines.

Professionals and amateurs

‘The word amateur from the Latin root meaning 'to love'.

The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does if for money.

Not the way I see it. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his real vocation. The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time’. Pressfield (2002)

This is familiar territory.

I heard it first from Richard Nelson E Bolles in ‘What Color’s Your Parachute?’ (New editions most years 1970-2011)

His advice is:

‘You become a professional by behaving like one.’ Bolles (1970)

Pressfield is derogatory about amateurs who toy with their art and blame the way they toy around for their failure.

‘We're all Pros already’ he encourages us to believe.

‘Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and over terrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyses him’. Pressfield (2002)

A Professional is patient

Resistance outwits the amateur with the oldest trick in the book: It uses his own enthusiasm against him. Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an over ambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion. It knows we can't sustain that level of intensity.

We will hit the wall. We will crash.

‘A professional accepts no excuses’ Pressfield (2002)

He knows if he caves in today, no matter how plausible the pretext, he'll be twice as likely to cave in tomorrow.

‘A professional does not take failure (or success) personally’ Pressfield (2002)

Resistance uses fear of rejection to paralyse us and prevent us, if not from doing our work, then from exposing it to public evaluation.

‘Starting is not my problem.' Pressfield (2002)

Starting something else is my problem. Being distracted is my problem.

I need to be behave like a professional BECAUSE I am not paid ... and then I will be.

REFERENCE

Pressfield, S (2002) The War of Art.