Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 106

The Principal and the Profile

My friend Jane worked for years for a legendary personality of the 20th century. I’m respecting her wishes by not using the gentleman’s name. Let’s call him Michael.
Michael was a target for the tabloids and the paparazzi. He was besieged relentlessly by fans and admirers, cranks, crazies, and outright stalkers. He lived on an estate.
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Putting “The Pivot” Into Play

I spent a few hours this week going over interview strategies with a friend.
My favorite play is “the pivot.”
It goes into play when the interviewer asks his or her guest a question that the guest isn’t interested in answering.
That’s an interesting question, but there’s another question that I’ve been thinking about . . .
Why not
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The Understory

I was laid up in bed with the flu this week and wound up watching the first two Bourne movies, starring Matt Damon, back-to-back. The experience got me thinking about the Understory.
When I start a new book, I open a file and title it UNDERSTORY. The understory is the architecture that undergirds and supports the
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Most Things Don’t Work Out

Through dint of brutally waged, all or nothing, creative battles, professional artists learn something amateurs never do. They discover that the visions inside their minds that enthrall them at the outset of a new endeavor rarely come to pass in the way they think they will.
They learn that recognized success is not all strawberry sundaes
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Opportunities are Bullshit, Part Two

I’ve been feeling a little bad about the first Opportunities Are Bullshit post a few weeks ago. Particularly after Callie’s wonderful “Nella from France” follow-on.
My post was a bit of a rant, I confess. Ventilation of a pet peeve. I probably overstated the case. So lemme try again.
We all want our stuff to be seen.
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A New Model for an Old Classic

“As the nation’s largest physical bookseller, Barnes & Noble supports publishers who support our bookstores.”
—B&N spokesman, as reported this week in Publishers Weekly
What does that mean? We support publishers who support us?
Remember the scene in the movie You’ve Got Mail, when Indie bookstore owner Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) sells books at full price to Joe
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All Breakthroughs come with a Fever

I first came upon this concept in the writings of Laurens van der Post, the great South African. Are you familiar with him? He wrote one of my favorite books, The Seed and the Sower. The following comes from The Lost World of the Kalahari:
It has sometimes appeared to me that fever is designed, in
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No One Cares

The other night at dinner, I was asked how one might become a writer who makes his living with a big six publisher. Not a flavor of the month big deal first novel writer, nor a blockbuster bestselling novelist, but a blue collar, book a year, kind of writer. Writers that used to be referred
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“Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

We were talking last week about stakes and jeopardy. It is critical in any story, I was saying, that the stakes for all characters be as high as possible—preferably life and death. There’s a further aspect to stakes/jeopardy that might be worth exploring this week.
The stakes in a story should always be on-theme.
Lemme digress for
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It’s Nella From France

I was upset when I read the title of Steve’s Writing Wednesday column the week before last: “Opportunities Are Bullshit.”
My thought process ran this route:
Really, Steve? There have been tons of great opportunities.
What about that interview with Mark McGuinness that just went up?
Wasn’t it an opportunity?
Or not?
When you have an interview with someone you’ve gotten
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