Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 110

Setups and Payoffs

One mistake that beginning writers often make is to forget about setups and payoffs. Sometimes they’ll have great setups but no payoffs. Other times they’ll invent a fantastic payoff, but fail utterly to set it up.
I used to make those mistakes all the time. I’d kick off Act One of a screenplay with all kinds
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Your Time Is Gonna Come

This past Tuesday, Simon & Schuster shut down an entire publishing division.
The publisher, editor in chief and three additional editors of The Free Press are leaving the company. The other editors and support staff were transferred to the remaining publishing groups—The Simon & Schuster Group, The Scribner Group, The Atria Group and The Gallery
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Too Much Mojo

We were talking last week about acquiring mojo, which I defined as that state when we are going gangbusters in our writing, art, or business. It’s “flow.” It’s “the Zone.”

The only problem with having Big Mojo, in my experience, is you can’t keep it up for long. I know I can’t. My nervous system can’t
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Outreach, Part I: The Introduction

This series is rooted in the one question I’ve been asked more than any other—Should I hire a publicist?—and my frustration with the many articles I’ve read about how to do outreach campaigns. The articles tend to offer up examples of people with household names, who can rely on monster followings, which most people don’t
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Mojo

We’ve been talking for the past few weeks about thinking in blocks of time, saying no to distractions, and digging in for traction. What’s the point of all this?
The point is to produce mojo.
According to Wikipedia, mojo is “a magical charm bag used in hoodoo, which has transmuted into a slang word for self-confidence, self-esteem
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Why It Takes So Long to Publish a Book

One of the first questions clients of my literary agency, Genre Management Inc. (some day I’ll explain why I chose that name) ask is “After I deliver my book, when will it come out?”
When I tell them between 9 to 15 months depending upon the publisher’s inventory, they tactfully freak out. It’s understandable in our
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Traction

The last two weeks we’ve been talking in these posts about buckling down and hitting a groove. By that I mean finding and achieving a steady, productive, working rhythm.
Traction.
Nothing gets stuff done like traction. When the rubber grips the road, we can deliver any payload. Long-range. Cross-country. Anywhere.
The opposite of traction is slippage. Spinning our
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Should I Hire A Publicist? Maybe. Maybe Not.

“Why should I hire a publicist?” is one of the top questions I’ve been asked by authors, film makers and whatsit creators.
When I started out, I’d cite what I’d heard others before me throw out, the main thing being this: Publicists have a strong list of contacts that authors don’t often have themselves.
These days, when
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No More Mister Nice Guy

We were speaking last week about returning from a vacation and gearing up to get back in the groove. I said that my first “note to self” would be to start thinking, not in immediate go-go terms, but in longer, extended blocks of time.

My second marching order to myself is to start saying no.
The aim
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One Shot

ONE SHOT
The other day someone asked me what I thought a first novelist needs to know about the business.

You have one opportunity at each of the publishing houses. There are no second chances.  Your agent (and yes you need an agent to get your book in front of an editor) can’t send the book to
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