A Misread Title

I recently went on a trip to Augusta to dog sit. It’s a 2 – 3 hour drive each way, and I love to use times like these to listen to an audiobook. While there, I watched a YouTube video created by Ali Abdaal (www.youtube.com/channel/UCoOae5nYA7VqaXzerajD0lg). He’s a great speaker, and his content mainly focuses on productivity. Can you tell what I was having difficulty with recently? This video mentioned a book called “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield (stevenpressfield.com/books/the-war-of-art/). During writer conferences, workshops, etc., I’d heard about this book before. I even thought I bought it at one time, but I had yet to read it. Some of the information he brought forth encouraged me to purchase the book. I immediately went to Audible to get it and was happy to see that the audible version was less than 3 hours long. This meant I could listen to it on my return home.

Now, I must stop here and explain why I had not read it before since it had been recommended many times. That is because I genuinely had the title in my head as “The Art of War,” and I’m not a big fan of reading about war. Head slap moment. Right? It’s The War of Art, not the other way around. It might have been my need to organize and put the first letter of the alphabet first. Who knows? Long story short (not really), I did end up listening to it on the way home, and…WOW. Just WOW.

The insight of this man really made me think. It also made my return trip go by very fast. I’d strongly recommend reading this book if you are an artist in any way (writer, painter, sculptor, or even a quilter). If you are a creator of any type, I believe you’d find something in this book to generate your thinking engines. And if you’re wondering why you might recognize his name, it’s because he also wrote “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” which was turned into a movie.

the WAR of ART book cover

​It may take you less time to read it physically, but I suggest you check it out. If you do, drop me a note, and let me know what you think.