Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 122

Bobbing for Shrapnel

"Halloween in Korea: bobbing for shrapnel. —Hawkeye Pierce, M*A*S*H television series
There's a scene in the novel M*A*S*H, when a Congressman's son is wounded. The father does what it takes to find the best chest-cutter in Korea—enter Dr. John "Trapper John" F.X. McIntyre. The pilot sent to pick up the doc finds him on a makeshift golf
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Out of the Garage

Prior to 1952, writers were at the rock bottom of the book publishing hierarchy.
A publisher acquired a book back then like this:
An agent and in many cases the author himself (F. Scott Fitzgerald handled his own book deals) would submit a novel and/or proposal for a work of nonfiction to an editor at a publishing
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Resistance and Addiction

Earlier this year, the "Writing Wednesdays" name was switched to "Do the Work Wednesdays" for the release of the book Do the Work. This post went up May 11, 2011, soon after the book's release. The comments that followed inspired other posts about addiction—and this reposting today.
Have you ever noticed that addicts are often extremely interesting
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Love Story of Panthea and Abradatas, Part Three

In Parts One and Two we have learned—from Xenophon's Education of Cyrus, translated by Walter Miller—of Panthea, the most beautiful woman in Asia, who was captured by Cyrus the Great but treated with such exemplary honor that she volunteered to bring her husband, the chariot commander Abradatas, over to Cyrus's cause.
Indeed Abradatus, out of gratitude
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The Fox, the Hawk, and the Keepers of the Chicken Coop

On January 27, 2010, Macmillan CEO John Sargent schlepped to the airport and flew across the country to meet with the company responsible for an estimated 15% of Macmillan's annual sales. He probably drew the short stick in a lottery among the CEOs of Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Penguin to see who would
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Love Story of Panthea and Abradatas, Part Two

[In Part One from last week, we learned---from Xenophon's Cyropaedia, translated by Walter Miller---how Cyrus the Great had captured the beautiful Panthea but refused to violate her honor. Out of gratitude for Cyrus's nobility, Panthea proposed to bring her husband Abradatas over from the enemy and enlist him and his thousand charioteers in Cyrus's cause.
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Leveling the Playing Field

Throughout the 1990s, the American Booksellers Association—the trade organization that represents independent bookstores across the country—spent more than $18 million dollars suing publishers and big box book retailers. (read: "Booksellers Settle Lawsuit Against Chains") The controversy concerned the third line item of my recent samples of book publishing profit and Loss reports:
TERMS OF SALE
In 1994, the
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My Years in the Wilderness

When I was living out of the back of my '65 Chevy van, there was a kind of dude I used to run into from time to time. A hard-core road character, burnt brown by the sun, unbathed in months, living on dimes a day. I probably met and spent time with a dozen guys
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The Love Story of Panthea and Abradatas

The following romance (in three parts) comes from one of my all-time favorite books, Xenophon's Education of Cyrus a.k.a. the Cyropaedia.
Xenophon was an extraordinary character—an Athenian aristocrat and devotee of Socrates, who became a great friend to Sparta and died an exile from his native land. The March of the Ten Thousand, also known as The Anabasis,
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The Economics Behind a "Hail Mary," Part One

I've racked my brain to figure out how to dive into the murky P/L waters without boring the bejesus out of everyone. I was talking about it yesterday on the phone with Steve and Callie, when I realized that each line item on a P/L [Profit/Loss Statement] actually tells a little story.  So over the
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