Of late I’d been hitting the t.v. reality show circuit pretty hard and becoming preoccupied with a couple of them. The Bravo shows are my crack. Top Chef . . . how could Lisa skate by? Again? Step It Up and Dance . . . I don’t want to love you, but the dancetestant Nick is absolutely adorable. Yikes, a Kathy Griffin marathon . . . I promised myself I’d only watch her long enough to fold the clothes, but somehow the afternoon done disappeared.

Suddenly, it hit me. Resistance was rearing its ugly head.

Y’all know Resistance. I’m sure you’re feeling it now while reading this blog post, because you know you should be doing The Work. Instead, you’re stalling.

It’s okay. I’ve been stalling too. I’ve been upset about Top Chef sending Antonia home, and that ringer from Broadway winning the 100G’s out from my beloved Nick. I’d even set the DVR to Bravo’s A-list Awards because Kathy Griffin’s hella-funny.

Unneeded distractions. I need a kick in the ass right now.

That’s when I pull out a gem of a little book that should be on every writer’s shelf: The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield.

For those who don’t know, Pressfield slogged for many years in the writer trenches. He’d written a ton of crappy screenplays, and some great ones. His novel, the Legend of Bagger Vance, was made into a successful film, and his epic historical Gates of Fire is required reading at military institutes and colleges world-wide.

The War of Art is a slim little book that straightens out my sorry excuse for a work ethic time and again. Here’s the passage that does it:


The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed. Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.

(p. 22)

I’m turning off the t.v., and getting down to bizness. Resistance will not win.

Neither must Chef Lisa. She shall not be Top Chef.

Image by Gondoliera.

Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She has written two novels under the pseudonym Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter--both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President's teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins.
Kathleen Bolton
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