Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It

by Steven Pressfield

If the Hook in The War of Art is, “Here’s the problem” … If the Build is, “Here’s the solution” … Then the Payoff is, “Ms. Writer, your role in this timeless, epic struggle is noble, valorous, and necessary. Heed the calling of your heart. Stand and go forth.”

Every ad must have a concept. And what we learned in Hollywood: Every movie must have a concept. In fiction: Every novel must have a concept. And nonfiction: Every work of nonfiction must have a concept.

A lot of thought went into defining this character. In the end I decided: 1) The character had to talk straight. 2) He had to be as tough with the reader as I am with myself. 3) He had to establish authority via his own experience as a writer. This experience had to include enough success to be credible and enough failure to be relatable. 4) The character had to speak to the reader peer to peer. I wanted to talk as if I were addressing myself, both because I wanted to respect the reader and because I believed that this tone was the one that the reader would respect. 5) Toward that end, the character would offer no “tips” or “exercises.” The issue, I believed, was too important to trivialize. 6) The character had to be totally candid, particularly about his own weaknesses and failures. Not so as to be “likeable,” but to encourage the equally-fallible reader and to

make him or her feel that they are not alone in their struggle. 7) The character had to truly and passionately believe in the worthiness of the artist’s calling—that of all artists and all creative types—and believe with equal conviction in the supreme value of art itself.

In other words, like other types of nonfiction, self-help can be treated as story and be conceived and structured in accord with storytelling principles.

Resistance is real. Self-sabotage is a fact. Radiating off the blank page, the empty canvas, the unexposed can of film is a force of relentless, merciless, protean evil that makes the Emperor Ming look like your sweet aunt Edna. That’s Reality #1. Anyone who tells you different is a liar.

As powerful as is the negative, destructive force we name Resistance, so mighty is the positive, creative force we call the Muse. Sit down. Open the faucet. The stuff that will appear, sometimes anyway, will exceed your fondest visions. You will stare down at it and exclaim, “Where in the world did that come from?”

remember studying the Existentialists in high school English. Mr. Wittern (or maybe it was Mr. Lund) wrote on the blackboard: GOD IS DEAD EVERYTHING IS RANDOM LIFE HAS NO MEANING Even then I knew that was bullshit.

The sphere of the artist is the mind. His currency is imagination. He asks (how can he not?), “Where do ideas come from?”

Like the monk and the mystic, the artist enters a mental space. He becomes a child. She becomes a vessel.

The artist enters the Void with nothing and comes back with something. Her skill is to turn off the self-censor. Her skill is to jump off the cliff. Her skill is to believe. As artists, what are we believing in? We’re believing in a conception of the universe (or at least of consciousness within that universe) that is not random, not pointless, not devoid of meaning.

We’re believing in a mental reality that is active, creative, self-organizing, self-perpetuating, infinitely diverse and yet cohesive, governed by laws that are not beyond the grasp and ken of human understanding. We’re believing that the universe has a gift that it is holding specifically for us and that, if we can learn to make ourselves available to it, it will deliver this gift into our hands. Believe me, this is true.

The #1 question that writers ask themselves: “I’ve got a million ideas. How do I know which one to work on?” Answer: Write your White Whale. Which idea, of all those swimming inside your brain, are you compelled to pursue the way Ahab was driven to hunt Moby Dick? Here’s how you know—you’re scared to death of it. It’s good to be scared. You should be scared. Mediocre ideas never elevate the heart rate. Great ones make you break out in a sweat.

That’s the writer’s life in a nutshell. But I would invert Melville’s concept. I don’t think you hate the whale. I think you love it. The whale is your unwritten book, your unsung song, your calling as an artist. You die grappling with this thing, lashed to it, battling it even as it takes you under.

You’ll know that whale by these qualities: Its accomplishment will seem beyond your resources. Your pursuit of it will bear you into waters where no one before you has sailed. To hunt this beast will require everything you’ve got.

What you learn in Wrong Career #1 will serve you in Off-Key Career #2 and in Out-of-Kilter Career #3, and the wisdom you acquire in #1, #2, and #3 will form the foundation of Real Calling #4 (or #5 or #6 or however long it takes.)

What Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit means is that none of us wants to hear your self-centered, ego-driven, unrefined demands for attention. Why should we? It’s boring. There’s nothing in it for us.

Can you sing the blues? Can you make a shoe? Make it beautiful. Make it fun and sexy and interesting and I’ll buy it. I’ll wear it. I’ll tell my friends about it. Your book, your poem, your movie can even be despairing, as long as it’s profoundly conceived and takes my understanding of life a little bit deeper.

“Every one is the same: talk, talk, screw, screw. That’s why they’re so lousy. That’s not good storytelling. Here’s what I want from you—when you get to a sex scene, don’t let the story come to a screeching halt while we watch two people bang each other.” Wow, I thought, that’s pretty smart. “Make the screwing scene advance the story,” the producer said. “Wherever the story stands when the actors start to jump each other’s bones, I want it to have moved to the next level by the time they finish.” He gave me an example. “Let’s say the characters are a private eye and his gorgeous client. They hop into bed. By the time they climb out, I want the story to have advanced to a new stage. She spills something about the crime, he reveals some secret from his past, whatever. Make the story ‘turn’ and mount to a higher level.”