Podcast Summary: How I Write – Steven Pressfield: The Brutal Truth About Creative Success

Host: David Perell
Guest: Steven Pressfield
Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Episode Overview

This classic episode of How I Write dives deep into the realities of creative discipline, the struggles of writing, and the spiritual and psychological journeys behind creative success. David Perell interviews bestselling author and legendary writing mentor Steven Pressfield (The War of Art, Gates of Fire), exploring the habits, stories, and brutal truths that underpin a writer’s life.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Discipline vs. Talent in Creative Work

• Discipline trumps talent:
  • Pressfield opens with:

    "If you have discipline and no talent, you're way better off than if you have giant talent and no discipline."
    (00:00)

  • He details writing as a grueling, daily practice:

    "It's a seven day a week thing...I can now do in two hours what I used to do in four. It's like going to the gym...Movement forward is everything."
    (01:12)

2. Facing Resistance and the Psychology of Writing

• Resistance as the eternal adversary:
  • Both Pressfield and Perell return often to the concept of “resistance”—that internal force that keeps writers from their work.
  • Perell summarizes Pressfield’s core idea:

    "The more you love something, the more resistance you're going to feel and therefore the more you need to do it."
    (00:07, 83:35)

• Cover the Canvas:
  • Pressfield’s writing mantra for first drafts:

    "My job on a first draft is just to get paint on every part of that canvas, doesn't matter how bad it is...It's going to be bad. It just has to be bad."
    (06:43, 06:50)

3. Separating the Craft from Everything Else

• Process of compartmentalization:
  • Pressfield on batching communication and deep work:

    "When I do sit down to actually work, everything else gets shut off. No emails coming in...that kind of thing."
    (02:27)

• On the physicality of typing and writing:
  • Nostalgia for the typewriter versus the delete key’s temptation on computers:

    "Sometimes I'll throw a piece of paper over the screen so I can’t see the mistakes...In those early drafts, letting the schmutz pour out of you can actually be good." - Perell (05:34)

4. Finding Your Authentic Voice

• Copywork and imitation as apprenticeship:
  • Pressfield, inspired by Hunter S. Thompson, copied pages to internalize rhythm and style:

    "I used to sit down with pages of Henry Miller or Hemingway and just copy it on my old typewriter…At some point you will find your own voice. You're just searching for a voice at all."
    (11:12, 13:00)

• Golf as metaphor for the authentic swing:
  • Drawing from his novel The Legend of Bagger Vance:

    "The idea of the authentic swing is we're born with a swing, whether we know it or not...Our job is not to find the perfect swing, but to find the swing we were born with."
    (14:23)

5. Storytelling Structure and Principles

• Application of narrative techniques across genres:
  • Transfer from screenwriting to novels and non-fiction:

    “The same principles that apply to a story or a narrative apply to non-fiction…every story has to have a hero, a villain, a theme, an inciting incident, a climax...”
    (18:41)

• Mapping and editing process:
  • The 60 scenes method and iterative refinement:

    “A movie is about 60 scenes...You can start with a ‘clothesline’ and then fill in the blanks. Constantly upgrading and revising.”
    (72:04)

6. Spirituality and the Role of Inspiration

• Prayer, muses, and the neshama:
  • Creative breakthroughs as acts of surrender:

    "Before I sit down at work each day, I say out loud the invocation of the muse from Homer’s Odyssey...I put myself at the service of whatever that unknown higher force is."
    (24:45)

  • On neshama:

    “Above every blade of grass is an angel saying, grow, grow…There are forces trying to give us ideas, trying to pull us through something.”
    (20:25)

  • Perell’s phrase:

    “Make it obvious, make it obvious to me…there’s a clarity and a simplicity to obviousness.”
    (22:15)

7. The Nature of Suffering and Success

• Suffering as transformation:
  • Pressfield on heroism, hardship, and growth:

    “Make your hero suffer...the more they suffer, the better the story is...There is no real learning without suffering.”
    (80:22)

• The Resurrection and the "All is Lost" Moment:
  • Relating story structures to personal and spiritual rebirth:

    “The all is lost moment...like Jesus on the cross...you can't solve the problem by material means, you solve it by spiritual means...that’s the resurrection in our lives.”
    (58:26)

8. Finding and Maintaining Flow

• Balancing discipline and flow:
  • Perell reflects:

    “There is still a love behind that work and it still pours out of them. They can’t even help themselves to work that hard.”
    (39:14)

9. Practical Writing Advice

• Mindset over craft:
  • If teaching aspiring writers:

    “I would not talk about the craft of writing at all. I would only talk about the mindset...the obstacles...and the mental toughness needed.”
    (32:29)

• The necessity of self-editing, feedback, and humility:
  • Hitting the wall, returning to square one, and iterative improvement:

    “That’s not the kind of thing many people are able to do...to get away from your ego, from all the sunk costs...If a book takes me two years to write, the first nine months to a year, I am racked with self doubt all the way through.”
    (34:17)

10. Coping with Distraction and Saying No

• Protecting creative time:
  • The difficulty, necessity, and etiquette around declining requests:

    "You gotta protect your time…If people don’t understand, you just have to blow those people off and say, I don’t care what they think of me.”
    (70:46)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Resistance and Self-Doubt:

  "The more resistance you feel to something, the more certain you can be that you have to do it." — Steven Pressfield (83:05)

• On the All Is Lost Moment:

  “It’s the moment when the hero hits bottom and has to go to another level…can only solve it by kind of spiritual means...that’s the resurrection in our lives.” — Steven Pressfield (58:26)

• On Creative Suffering:

  “There is no real learning without suffering.” — Steven Pressfield (81:24)

• On Writing and Mindset:

  “As hard as you think it might be, it’s 10 times harder than that. And be ready for it.” — Steven Pressfield (32:29)

• On Authenticity:

  “At some point you just say, I just can’t do this, you know, let me write this crazy shit that nobody’s going to be interested in but me. And then to your amazement, you go, wow, people like this.” — Steven Pressfield (38:27)

Important Timestamps

• 00:00 – Discipline vs. talent
• 01:12 – Pressfield’s writing routine and exhaustion cues
• 06:43 – First drafts and “covering the canvas”
• 11:12 – Copywork, imitation, and finding voice
• 14:23 – The “authentic swing” as a metaphor for authenticity
• 18:41 – Applying storytelling to fiction and non-fiction
• 20:25 – Neshama and the spiritual dimension of creativity
• 32:29 – What he’d teach in a writing seminar: mindset, not craft
• 58:26 – The “all is lost” moment, resurrection, and personal transformation
• 70:46 – Saying “no” to protect creative time
• 72:04 – The 60 scenes method and structural planning

Thematic Wrap-up

Steven Pressfield and David Perell shine a light on the inner battles, practical frameworks, and enduring questions involved in the writer’s craft. They show that the journey is not about innate talent, but about continual spiritual and mental reinvention—finding one’s authentic voice by moving through resistance, suffering, and self-doubt with discipline and hope. For those pursuing any creative calling, Pressfield’s lessons resonate: movement forward is everything, authenticity emerges from persistence, and the real story is the one you are stubborn enough to keep pursuing, day after day.

Further Resources

• The War of Art, Steven Pressfield
• The Legend of Bagger Vance, Steven Pressfield
• Nobody Wants to Read Your Sht*, Steven Pressfield
• Writing Wednesdays (Pressfield’s blog)
• Daily Pressfield (companion book referenced in episode)

For more episodes uncovering the reality of the writer’s life and process, subscribe to How I Write on your preferred platform.