For anyone with creative resolutions for the new year, I highly recommend The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I've had my copy for several years, thumbed through it a bunch, and always find in it the encouragement to keep pressing on. The chapters are VERY short (some only a page) but they're so dense with ideas that I may recommend taking one or two chapters at a time to ruminate on.
One of the major principles espoused in the book is the idea of "going pro", which involves showing up every day, no matter what. It's a bit like Julia Cameron's concept of sitting down to write whether inspiration has hit you or not, because once you plop your little reluctant butt down at the desk, you'll be surprised how often "inspiration" arrives. .
The challenge with a book like this is to keep up with it. To read it daily. It's so tempting to pick it up when I'm feeling down, read a bit, get charged up, and having slapped a Band-Aid on my despondency, go to sleep and forget about it for a month or so. I'd love to be more diligent about it in the new year, so if anyone needs a "book buddy" let me know.
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