Writing Wednesdays
Depth of Work
By Steven Pressfield | Published: February 24, 2010
This is a topic I plan to address in a series of posts over the next few weeks. But first I want to thank every correspondent who took the time to write in response to last week’s “Help!” post. As I type this, we’ve had 69 Comments. This is absolutely amazing, and I thank everybody. Particularly for the detail of the responses. It really helps me. I’m traveling this week and the next so I won’t be able to send out signed “War of Arts” yet in gratitude, but I will as soon as I can. Gracias, everybody, for the overwhelming and very helpful response!
Now to Depth of Work—and a confession. I’m not sure if it’s evident from my posts over the last couple of months, but I’ve been going through a crisis in my own work (see “Self-Doubt” and “Wrestling an Alligator,” among others.) Much of it has to do with depth of work, or rather the lack of it.
I’ve been shallow. Resistance has beaten me much too often. The culprit, oddly enough, has been success—and the urge that public recognition engenders to “expand.” If you glance around at this blog page, you’ll see that I have plunged over the last year into a cause that is partly political, partly military, and largely involves the attempt to influence events in the real world through direct personal participation. I love this cause, it’s a passion of mine; it has brought me great new friends (and we, by our efforts together, may even have nudged the pea a few centimeters down the trail.) But this type of enterprise is not healthy for a writer. I didn’t know that six months ago, or even two months ago.
Depth of work. This is where satisfaction comes from for people like me and you. This is the fun of the game; this is what it’s all about. This is why we all got into this business.
What is depth of work? Have you ever had one of those days at the gym where you go around yakking to your buddies, schmoozing and chilling. That is NOT depth of work. Have you ever tweeted, or checked your Facebook page, or succumbed to serial e-mailing? That ain’t depth of work either.
Jon Naber won four gold medals in swimming at the ’76 Olympics, all in world record times. I saw an interview with him right afterward. The reporter asked a very insightful question about a sport where thousandths of a second separate gold from everybody else: “What’s the difference between a good swimmer and a great one?” John Naber answered as follows: “In competition, almost immediately after you hit the water, you enter the Pain Zone. It hurts–and it gets worse every meter you go. The great swimmers,” John Naber said, “are the ones who can go deeper into the Pain Zone and stay there longer.”
That’s depth of work. In my experience, depth of work consists of two components. The first is recklessness; the second is discipline. Dionysian; Apollonian. Passion;reason.
Recklessness means putting out of your mind all thoughts or fears of the opinions of others—and even the opinion of yourself. It means jumping off the cliff. In acting, it means uncorking a fearless performance, where you risk looking like an absolute fool in an effort to get to the deepest, truest levels of the character. In writing, it means letting it rip on the page, trusting the Muse and following your instincts. It means spewing sometimes. Free-associating. Going for it.
Then comes the hard part: appending reason. Discriminatory intelligence. Now we have to ask the really hard questions. What is this stuff all about? What am I trying to do? What is the deepest truth underlying this?
I read a story once about Barbra Streisand at a recording session. She did take after take of the same song. The reporter telling the story said he couldn’t tell the difference between Take One and Take Two, or even Take One and Take Nine. But, he said, he could tell the difference between Take One and Take Sixteen. Obvious Ms. Streisand could tell. That too is depth of work.
What we’re talking about here is head-banging, non-glamorous, nut-busting labor. It’s lonely. It hurts. It drives everybody else crazy. It requires tremendous professionalism and courage (or, perhaps more accurately, stubbornness and mulishness) and control of our emotions and our fears.
The analogy of the gym is a good one, I think. Because one thing the gym teaches is that “you have to train to be able to train.” Meaning you can’t go in, Day One, and start bench-pressing the same weight Reggie Bush benches. You have to build a base of strength slowly, over time, being careful not to set yourself back by injury, impatience or boredom.
In other words, depth of work requires—in addition to recklessness and reason– commitment over time.
I’m reading a really interesting book right now by Michael Bungay Stanier called Do More Great Work. Mr. Stanier starts by citing Milton Glazer’s axiom that we all do three kinds of work: bad work, good work and great work. One of the “map exercises” in the book (a very interesting graphic technique that helps you understand what you really think or really want) asks you how much great work you’re doing. It’s a pie chart. I thought about myself. I’m doing about 0.01 great work right now. It’s such a tiny sliver of the pie, I can’t even draw it.
Another exercise in the book asks you to recall a time when you were doing great work. Here’s one for me: I had taken a month, by myself, and was renting a cottage on a farm in the highlands of Scotland. I was writing Tides of War then, which was a really difficult book about a ridiculously obscure subject. I loved it. I would work in my freezing little room in the cottage the morning, then play golf in the afternoon. It was great. I got in some really intense, long work sessions (because the days are so long in Scotland, you can play golf in the summertime till nine at night.)
Those mornings were depth of work. I had momentum, I had commitment over time; I was busting my butt and really going deep, into a subject that I loved and that I didn’t care whether anybody else was interested in or not.
Those days seem distant to me now. I’m shallow these days; my focus is scattered. I’m schmoozing at the gym; I don’t have momentum. I hate it. It sucks. I have to change. I have to get a handle on this and dig myself out.
I’m not complaining. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sharing this state of mind here on this page, so that anybody who has read The War of Art and imagines that the guy who wrote the book has conquered Resistance (while he, the reader, is still struggling with it) will be disabused of such a silly notion and will not beat himself up over it. I’m as human as the next guy and I take the gaspipe too sometimes just like everyone else.
Working deep is the answer for me. To be happy, to feel good about myself, to not feel guilty about sucking up my share of oxygen on the planet. I have to get back to it.
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“Those days seem distant to me now. I’m shallow these days; my focus is scattered. I’m schmoozing at the gym; I don’t have momentum. I hate it. It sucks. I have to change. I have to get a handle on this and dig myself out”
Really? You have to change? Well no you don’t actually, you’ll carry on living without making those changes.
Maybe you WANT to change though, and that is a HUGE difference. Take the pressure off yourself man and do stuff you want to do and not stuff you feel you have to, must do or should do.
I think resistance, like many challenges, is an ongoing battle. Just when you think you’ve got it licked it pops up again. Give it a minute and it’ll take an hour, a day, or more.
That said, I do think focusing your energy in a different direction is a great technique to beat the law of accommodation be it physical or mental. It sounds like you did this successfully while writing ‘Tides of War’. Consider “It’s the Tribes, Stupid” your Ryder cup (but on a higher level). It’s not as if you’ve been swimming in shallow water… you’ve just been out of it with a dip of the toe every Wed. But that water calls you… needs you… as you need it. There is even a school of fish waiting for the return of their Big Kahuna. Looking forward to your adventures and hearing more from the Muse. Dive in… the water is great!
A bit off topic, I couldn’t help but think of the recent performance and story of Chris Del Bosco at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver as an inspiring example of the battle against resistance in all its forms.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/freestyle_skiing/news?slug=jp-delbosco022110&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Did you feel that way about Virtues of War? There were elements of the storytelling style that I wasn’t comfortable with when I first read it, but that book has stayed with me for years. I can still picture scenes from it very clearly.
Short -n- Sweet
Stephen, you’ve engendered this fan even deeper still by exposing our common humanity.
I’ll keep it succinct today.
All the best!
You sound like you’re experiencing the dilemma of every creative mother I’ve ever known. I love THE WAR OF ART. I’m not yet done with it, but it seems to me that one of its blind spots may be its masculinity. It quotes a lot of men, and a lot of people who either have wives, or don’t have kids. … A woman who creates has to be able to devote herself, above all, to two pursuits: raising her work, and raising her child. She can’t give up on either. The distraction goes on day after day, every day, from birth. … Renting a Scots cottage and “working deep” for a highland summer is a nice idea. I could even afford it; it’s just not possible for me, because I have a child. Leaving the child behind is not an option. Taking the child makes “working deep” impossible.
I’ve decided I have to surrender to this dilemma, instead of fighting it.
Good luck. I mean it. I think I know where you are.
As a new mom of a 14-month-old — when do we stop being “new”? — I relate to what Guinevere is saying. I hadn’t noticed or considered the masculinity of the point of view from which WofA was written. I don’t necessarily think that Mr. Pressfield intended that — and I’m not suggesting that Guinevere is saying that either — but her comment really hit a nerve with me as I am struggling with the whole balancing of motherhood versus creative endeavors. Even though you know what a commitment it is to have a child, you never know really how much of a commitment and sacrifice it is until you get there. And without disparaging the role of fathers and what the wonderful men in our lives do, it isn’t the same for them. There is no going off to war or bringing home the bacon for mothers without a deep-seated guilt for being separated from our little ones. Getting online to read my favorite blogs is a luxury now, an activity that is conducted in the dead of night when the household sleeps. The description of working deep in Scotland sounds dreamy, but there’s no way in the world I’d leave my child for any opportunity like that…even for a couple of weeks…or days. I think Guinevere’s term “surrender” about sums it up. You have to surrender to motherhood. That doesn’t keep me from picking away at the novel daily, but everything comes second. And it feels like a bit of a loss sometimes, but it’s necessary…and I couldn’t change it even if I wanted to.
Steven
Totally thrilled to have you mention Do More Great Work in this blog post. Thank you!
Steve,
Thank you so much for sharing and giving it to us straight, no chaser (which is why you’re so awesome to begin with). It’s very encouraging for an “infantryman” writer like myself to hear that “General” Pressfield still has to fight the good fight against Resistance too. Also, what I love about this blog — as well as the War of Art — is that it’s written from the perspective of a real working writer. Not a writing guru or Manhattan book agent (no offense to Robert McKee or Noah Lukeman, both of whom have written books I quite enjoyed and learned a lot from).
I’ve been writing since I was ten, and I love it…and hate it. But I love it more than I hate it, which is why I keep doing it. Writing is messy. Writing is bloody. Writing can be awesome AND a bitch (sometimes in the same session). And as a very accomplished writer once told me, it doesn’t really get any easier…you just learn to love the pain.
Because the pain of NOT writing is so much worse.
So thank you for sharing your agonies…and for going into the Pain Zone again and again…and thanks in advance for the awesome work of art it’s going to bring forth! I’m rooting for you! (And even though you don’t know me, feel free to root for me too.)
David
Santa Monica, CA
i agree about jumping off the cliff or taking the plunge. we worry too much about what’s going to happen instead of living in the moment and surrendering to it. and who says we have to associate taking the plunge with all this self doubt and uncertainty? will there be fish to nibble on your toes at the bottom of the water, will it be cold, how will i swim?etc. make friends with self doubt and uncertainty, i say! allies! take the plunge!
I understand guinevere’s argument, and I don’t necessarily disagree with it…but. When I think of writers on creativity, most of the names that spring to mind first are female: Julia Cameron, Natalie Goldberg, Twyla Tharp, are the ones making the biggest blip on my radar about now. What I loved about WoA was the male perspective, a point of view I had missed in a lot of my reading.
So while I honor the argument, which is, I think, that finding depth of work is more about overcoming our distractions in whatever time we carve for ourselves, rather than being able to retreat monk-like from the world, don’t give up your point of view. In an earlier post you wrote about only being successful when you quit worrying about what would be successful, even to the point of ignoring the intersection of possible success and interest. So the question is, if you imagined all those distractions being gone, what would you write.
Hi Steven,
Just wanted to send a quick note to say that I enjoy “Writing Wednesdays.” Your voice and attempt to speak truth to power has helped me in my journey of trying to translate my time in Iraq to both technical and prose writing. Initially, I thought that telling my story would be easy until all the emotions and memories flooded back into my mind. You’ve given me the encouragement to tell that voice of resistance to “STFU” and drive on with my mission.
Thanks again.
Mike Few
Fort Bragg, NC