Tribe of Mentors

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I read this slim little book before any new creative project and it lights a torchfire inside me. The crisis with all creative work is that it requires us to trust that generative voice inside us while also silencing the negative ones. It’s so easy to mix them all up and end up quietly abandoning our ambitions. (It’s why I became a pharmaceutical consultant at 21 years old, selling Viagra instead of writing fantasy like I do now.) Half drill sergeant, half Zen voodoo master, Pressfield shot me out of my stupor and taught me the meaning of creative discipline.

When 99 percent of your life is your work, either you are really bad at what you do or you are completely off balance with the rest of your life; neither is something to be proud of.