Start date: October 18, 2025
End date: October 29, 2025
22
There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.
46
Fear doesn’t go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.
52
The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight.
55
The awakening artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others…The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.
58
We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.
60
It knows it has distracted us with a cheap, easy fix and kept us from doing our work……principle applies to drugs, shopping, masturbation, TV, gossip, alcohol, and the consumption of all products containing fat, sugar, salt, or chocolate.
73
Maybe it’s easier to endow our partner with the power that we in fact possess but are afraid to act upon.
76
Resistance also told me I shouldn’t seek to instruct, or put myself forward as a purveyor of wisdom; that this was vain, egotistical, possibly even corrupt, and that it would work harm to me in the end. That scared me. It made a lot of sense.
What finally convinced me to go ahead was simply that I was so unhappy not going ahead. I was developing symptoms. As soon as I sat down and began, I was okay.
82
These are not easy questions: Who am I? Why am I here?……We know what the clan is; we know how to fit into the band and the tribe. What we don’t know is how to be alone. We don’t know how to be free individuals.
93
Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
94
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.
98
The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.
102
Friends sometimes ask, “Don’t you get lonely sitting by yourself all day?” At first it seemed odd to hear myself answer No. Then I realized that I was not alone; I was in the book; I was with the characters. I was with my Self.
134
What I feel and say and do that night will not be coming from any disowned or unresolved part of me, any part corrupted by Resistance.
I go to sleep content, but my final thought is of Resistance. I will wake up with it tomorrow. Already I am steeling myself.
139
All of us pros in one are
142
The amateur, on the other hand, overidentifies with his avocation, his artistic aspiration…he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him.
143
How does he pursue his calling? One, he doesn’t show up every day. Two, he doesn’t show up no matter what. Three, he doesn’t stay on the job all day.
147
That was when I realized I had become a pro. I had not yet had a success. But I had had a real failure.
150
The more you love your art/calling/enterprise, the more important its accomplishment is to the evolution of your soul, the more you will fear it and the more Resistance you will experience facing it.
153
Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion. It knows we can’t sustain that level of intensity. We will hit the wall. We will crash.
Note: the hit and crash reminds me
159
The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn’t talk about it. She does her work.
160
The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.
178
A professional schools herself to stand apart from her performance, even as she gives herself to it heart and soul…we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor.
192
She knows she can only be a professional at one thing. She brings in other pros and treats them with respect.
199
YOU, INC……If we think of ourselves as a corporation, it gives us a healthy distance on ourselves.
210
The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
214
I had one novel nine-tenths of the way through and another at ninety-nine hundredths before I threw them in the trash. I couldn’t finish em. I didn’t have the guts.
219
“Start the next one today.”
236
More than make it great, make it live.
264
The Ego is the part of the psyche that believes in material existence.
284
Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal image we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.
310
Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?
321
In the end the question can only be answered by action. Do it or don’t do it.