Author of several books, including the novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and the non-fiction book on creativity, The War of Art, Steven Pressfield tells people what it takes to "turn pro" and get serious about creative work. This interview, a little over an hour and a half long, is mind blowing if you're someone who delves into artistry of any kind. If you do any kind of creative work seriously, read The War of Art.
Here's what many of you longtime readers are likely to know about me. I got into BMX freestyle in a trailer park outside of Boise, Idaho in 1982. Riding bikes led me down a weird path in life, and I wound up working at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines in 1986, for the AFA in 1987, and worked as a video guy for Vision for a while after that. I was one of the guys who lived in the P.O.W. House in the early 1990's, the first famous BMX rider house. I was also a longtime roommate of Chris Moeller, owner of S&M Bikes, during that time, and I edited the first two S&M videos, Feel My Leg Muscles and 44 Something. I also made a self-produced video around 1990 called The Ultimate Weekend, that I just won't shut up about.
Then I disappeared for a couple of decades, wound up back east, and started blogging about my early BMX freestyle days, in 2008. Before the Old School BMX Reunion, before the Old School BMX podcasts, and before Greystoke, I was blogging, writing about my adventures as a BMX freestyler and industry guy in the 1980's and 1990's. Then, in 2015, I started selling my Sharpie Scribble Style drawings, doing my versions of classic photos, with Sharpie markers. And I'm homeless, and can't seem to get my act together financially. I keep blogging, drawing, and scraping by as a homeless dude. Something like that.
Life after suicide...
Then there's the part you don't know. In the spring of 2015, shortly before Easter, I woke up on Sunday morning, in a small apartment in North Carolina, and just couldn't take it any more. While my mom was alseep in her room, I swallowed a whole bottle of Lithium and a whole bottle of Abilify, the two drugs I had been prescribed for many months. The medication turned me into a zombie, I could barely function, and had no energy. I was absolutely miserable on the meds, and pretty miserable off of them. Being on medication was so bad, that I had stopped taking my meds a month earlier. On that Sunday morning I swallowed both entire bottles of pills, and sat on the couch in the living room, waiting to die. A weird calm came over me, and I sat there for about 45 minutes, "knowing" I was dead. I had no great insights, I didn't really have any regrets. I just wanted the pain of living to be over... finally. I just sat there thinking, 'OK, that's it, I'm dead."
Then I started to throw up. A lot of the medicine was in my system, but I threw up some of the pills. At that point I realized I might actually live, and that I needed to get to the hospital. I woke my mom up and told her what I had done, and that I needed her to drive me to the nearby hospital, 3 or 4 miles away. She was pissed. My mom did not like getting up in the mornings, she usually slept until at least noon. It took over half an hour to get her up, wait for her to get dressed, and get to the hospital. I puked some more then, and then some more at the hospital.
After not initially believing that I had really swallowed all those pills, the doctors and nurses believed me once they got the results of my blood test. I had a ton of lithium in my system. The next day I got transferred to a larger hospital, where I'd already made two trips to the psych ward in the previous couple of years. I wound up spending about 9 days in regular hospital rooms, and then 7 or 8 more days in the psych ward. The doctors gave me dialysis into my neck, through my jugular vein, to strain as much of the lithium as possible out of my system, twice, in the next two days. I had to lay there for five or six hours, motionless, while they did that. For nearly three days, I had three times the "fatal" level of lithium (a heavy metal) in my system. I should not have lived. I should have wound up a vegetable, practically brain dead, just from the lithium poisoning. There is some higher force at play in this world, whatever you call it. That higher decided to keep me around a while longer.
When I finally got out of the hospital, I got a new psychiatrist, a good one, for once. I already had a cool therapist. The psychiatrist put me on much better meds, so my symptoms died down, but I could still function. I had been severely depressed because I was 50 years old, living in North Carolina (which I hated), I was unable to find any job, or earn any money, and I living with my mom, who had her own serious mental health issues that she refused to ever get help for. She was a very toxic and abusive person who drove everyone around her crazy. At the time there was no one in my life that I really found interesting. For over 20 years, I had been around weird, crazy, creative, action sports people, and a lot of really entrepreneurial people. There was non of those people in North Carolina. I literally didn't have an intelligent conversation for about 7 years at that point. I just wanted to earn $300 and get on a bus back to California, where there were people I could actually relate to.
Once out of the hospital, and on decent meds for that period of time, I started diving more and more into my creativity, blogging online and doing my Sharpie drawings. Still unable to find any job, I decided to try and sell my Sharpie drawings online in November of 2015, about seven months after the overdose. I stepped up my game, and started drawing pictures of people. I put a couple on Facebook, and I sold a drawing for $20. Then another one.
By the late spring of 2016, a year after my suicide attempt, I was a "working artist," drawing every day, and making a small amount of money. I lived free with my mom, her Social Security was enough to pay the bills. I did the "guy things" around the house, and drove her to all of her appointments, and to go shopping, since her eyes were really bad. But the continual drama kept eating at me. And every time I made a little bit of money, she created some kind of "emergency," which required every dime of my small amount of money. That was one of the manifestations of her issues. While my depression has lessened a lot, I couldn't make any progress towards making a living again, and getting my own place.
In late may of 2017, my mom and I had a big argument, and I called a friend, to get me out of the house. I grabbed some of my stuff, and my friend gave me a ride to a patch of woods in a larger city nearby. I built a lean-to, out of branches and leaves, and slept in it for three nights. Then some guy in the nearby park gave me an old, six-man tent. I began living in the tent in the patch of woods. Later that year, with that friend from group therapy keeping tabs on me, I weaned myself off of my meds. My depression was largely gone. I've been getting by, selling Sharpie drawings, though living homeless, almost the whole time since. My psychiatrist said I was one of his best success stories. Then he took another job, and moved.
It was after three weeks living in the woods, a friend gave me some money to get a motel room for a night. I woke up the next morning, in late June of 2017, and I started this blog, Steve Emig: The White Bear. I didn't know if anyone would read it. I didn't know if I'd survive the winter in the tent in that city. I didn't know if I could ever make an actual living from my Sharpie art. But going back wasn't an option. So I kept blogging, drawing, and surviving as a homeless guy, day after day. I've been doing that for the 8 1/2 years since my suicide attempt. My depression faded away. I'm really frustrated a lot, from not being able to make a living and rent a room or and apartment. But focusing on creative work keeps me in pretty good spirits.
It's now about 6 years and 11 months since I started this blog. I've lived 8 1/2 years, sold over 100 drawings, and now written and published a blog with 1,000 posts, since I "committed" suicide. It's also 40 years since I graduated from Boise High School this month. This is not the life I imagined, by any means, when I was in high school. But it has been one hell of an adventure. I've come to grips with my creative drive. I don't question and over analyze every creative idea, like I did for much of my life. Day after day, I sit down and do the work of writing or drawing, and promoting my work.
This is my first blog to make it to 1,000 blog posts, and it also has well over 300,000 page views. My original Freestyle BMX Tales blog ended at about 510 blog posts. I deleted that blog from the internet in 2012, which I immediately regretted. It was a couple of months after my dad's death, and when I was beginning to get severely depressed.
It's been a long, crazy few years while I've doing this blog, including the pandemic years. But I'm still alive. I'm still writing my blog, and drawing regularly, though still homeless. I'm back in Southern California, the only place, out of the six states I've lived in, that ever seemed like home to me. I'm still here, still alive, and I've become ridiculously prolific as a creative guy, after my suicide attempt. I wanted to write some mind blowing blog post for post #1,000. But I decided to finally tell you guys why I began to focus so heavily on being creative, several years ago, instead. Now you know.
A huge Thank You to everyone who has read a post, or many posts. A huge Thank You to everyone who has bought one or more drawings, or has helped me keep going, in one way or another. I'm going to keep at it until this is how I make my living. I just keep plugging away at the creative work. This is who I am. This is what I do. There's a lot more to come. Thanks for taking this journey with me.
I've been doing a lot of writing on a platform called Substack lately, which is designed specifically for writers. On my Substack I go deeper into big ideas. I've also just begun writing the stories of some places, locations I find interesting (like Sheep Hills trails). If you like anything in this blog, check out my Substack:
Thanks again everyone! Post #1,000 is on the blog. There's a lot more to come.
Riding my Schwinn Cruiser backwards in 2009 while back East. Just for the record, I was under pressure to sell this bike from my family, shortly after the time it was given to me. This bike was a gift from a group of my blog readers from the Midwest. I put it in a pawn shop, and would go pay the interest on it every month, so it was out of sight, and safe, hoping for a better situation in the future. During one of my stays in the hospital I missed the interest payment, and I lost the bike. So I apologize to the guys who hooked me up with this bike, it was just a really weird situation while in NC. I was hoping to start making a living again, and then be able to start riding regularly again.
I've been doing most of my writing lately on a platform called Substack, which is designed specifically for writers. Check it out:
My thoughts on financial markets
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