Free ebook—Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t

[Paul Whybrow]

I've read about 20 writing handbooks in the last year. One of the best is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It's not a writing guide as such, more a motivational boot camp nag into how to overcome obstacles in the creative process.

He really knows what he's talking about, from long and bruising experience:

Steven Pressfield - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

His website: Books | Steven Pressfield

Pressfield is closely allied with Shawn Coyne, who is his agent and quite a writing guru himself. His Story Grid method of writing a book is worth a look—it's cheaper as an ebook.

His website: Story Grid

Together they started a publishing company called Black Irish, and a sequel to The War of Art has just come out. It's called Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t and is available as a free download. This may be a time limited offer, so download it now. I read it in a couple of hours and found much of value.

Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t - Download | Black Irish Books

 

[Patricia D]

This weekend, a writer friend sent me to read something Sean Coyne had written:

"What is the writer/artist's job?

To entertain? Of course. If the work doesn't compel the audience, you're sunk.

But is there a larger responsibility?

In this article, which I wrote for Steven Pressfield's site, I put forth the notion that it is the writer/artist's responsibility to clearly defend the values he/she most treasures. Again, the theme/controlling idea of the work has to be crystal clear."

I wasn't sure what I thought about this until I read the article, which I found compelling Art and Polarity

 

[KG Christopher]

Thanks, Paul, can always do with another book on 'how to write' although, reading 20 in the last year begs the question -- are you writing? or reading about writing? I also think I accomplish stuff by visiting Litopia and 'living the virtual life of a writer with my kindred Litopians'. Its a recent nag I have had. To be honest, I haven't written anything creative in over 6 weeks, or even queried anything.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Thanks, Paul, can always do with another book on 'how to write' although, reading 20 in the last year begs the question -- are you writing? or reading about writing? I also think I accomplish stuff by visiting Litopia and 'living the virtual life of a writer with my kindred Litopians'. Its a recent nag I have had. To be honest, I haven't written anything creative in over 6 weeks, or even queried anything.

To clarify, of the 20 books in writing about ten were writers' memoirs, including Stephen King, Lawrence Block and Annie Dillard. Two others were on grammar, and more for reference—the excellent Noah Lukeman's The Art of Punctuation and Grammar For Grownups by Craig Shrives—this is like being barked at by an army officer, which he was for 25 years.

In typical stubborn fashion, I only started reading advice books after I'd written 400,000 words of poetry, song lyrics, short stories and novellas. I have a reputation for putting the cart before the horse, but I've enjoyed learning of famous author's struggles and picking up tips on technique.

I like Steven Pressfield's work because he's gone through years of struggling and failure, before seeing the light and finding success—and he's generous in passing on his wisdom.

 

[Sea-shore]

As Paul said, 'The War of Art' is more of a motivational book and definitely not a 'how to write' book. My brother bought the book for me and I rather wish that he hadn't. I only found five sentences pages from the middle part useful but I did find an awful lot of blank white space.

If you are going spend money on this, do have a flick through it/ browse before you buy.