Writer's block is like a ball of barbed wire sitting in your chest. If you make a slight move in any direction, the ball tears into your flesh, and you retreat back to that static position, staring at the blank screen or empty piece of paper. You’re stuck. I can’t say I’ve conquered writer's block or even learned to live with it. It currently has my number, given that I’ve only written a handful of blog posts since the summer. I’ve just been sitting around, waiting for the muse to show up and take away the inconvenience of having to do the work. However, listening to Steven Pressfield’s book “Turning Pro” gave me a different insight on how to combat writer's block and the writing process in general. You see, I’ve been acting like an amateur, and I want to turn pro.
Pressfield wrote some of my favorite books that I’ve re-read multiple times, including “The Afghan Campaign” and “Gates of Fire.” I highly recommend them to anyone. However, in “Turning Pro,” Pressfield tackles the self-help/improvement genre and shares practical advice through his own experience turning from an amateur to a pro and the experience of other “professionals” he knows as well. The book is short and no-nonsense. Pressfield spends most of the time in the book comparing differences in habits and actions between professionals and amateurs. It’s not profession-specific. You can be a plumber in Kansas City, a CEO at an accounting firm in L.A., or a painter in Brooklyn everything he says translates to what you do for a living or what you do as a hobby. Yes, you can, and should, go pro in your hobbies as well.
There are so many good takeaways from the book, but one of the biggest is the importance of just showing up. You see, I was of the mind and mystified by writers who put out op-eds every week. How do they find the motivation? How do they find the inspiration? They don’t. They show up and work like any other job. You don’t sit down and start cranking out “War and Peace” with every angle and plot point already developed. It’s a process. And the first step is doing whatever you want to go pro at consistently. You don’t know what to write; who cares? Sit down and start hitting the keyboard. Pick up the pen. Write nonsense. Keep writing. The important thing is to show up. No matter how void you are of inspiration, it's imperative that you just show up. Bad days are expected, but bad effort, or no effort, is unacceptable for the pro.
Amateurs wait for motivation or the muse to fill them. Once amateurs “feel” it, they act. When the feeling eventually leaves, they go back to that static position. They hope and pray for the next injection of motivation from the muse. The amateur sits there and lets everything pass them. They’ll only move for the perfect idea to avoid that ball of barbed wire tearing into them. Pros don’t have that luxury.
Professionals know that to reach a certain level of success in their given field, they have to get a proper amount of repetitions in. That means showing up consistently. The professional understands that every time they open the laptop or pick up the pen, gold doesn't flow out. If they show up and give a good effort but the product falls short of expectations, that’s fine. They know they will come back tomorrow and refine it or start over. The professional knows the price must be paid, the work must be done. When they are tired, when they are angry, the work must be done. If it so happens to be a day when the ideas flow seamlessly and the muse arrives with a full basket, that’s great. The professional enjoys it for what it is, an exception, not the rule. With all of that said, I only have one question for you: are you a professional or an amateur?
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