Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 130

Inner Wars

PART THREE
INNER WARS
Chapter 21   Casualties of War
All of us know brothers and sisters who have fought with incredible courage on the battlefield, only to fall apart when they came home.



Why? Is it easier to be a soldier than to be a civilian?
For the warrior, all choices have consequences. His decisions
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East Russell Street Feed and Seed

East Russell Street Feed and Seed sold everything from hanging plants and corn seed to dog pedicures and Easter chicks.
I was 16 when I worked there—my first non-babysitting-or-lawnmowing-and-comes-with-a-paycheck job.
A few things I learned:
Poodles who have pedicures more often than you do know when your heart's not into the job. They can't paint their own nails,
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The Warrior Sense of Humor

Chapter 20  Die Laughing
The warrior sense of humor is terse, dry—and dark. Its purpose is to deflect fear and to reinforce unity and cohesion.
The Warrior Ethos dictates that the soldier make a joke of pain and laugh at adversity. Here is Leonidas on the final morning at Thermopylae:
"Now eat a good breakfast, men. For we'll
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The Foolscap Method

Here's a trick I use on every project. I learned it from my friend and mentor, the novelist and documentarian Norm Stahl. Norm and I were having lunch one day at Joe Allen's in Manhattan and I was complaining about how hard it was to get a novel started. Norm happened to have a pad of
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3PV Part Deux

Here's another joke:
A powerful Hollywood Lit agent calls a studio executive. After the perfunctory chit chat:
"How's it going?"
"Can't complain."
"And if you could, who'd listen, right?"
The agent asks the exec what he thinks of his hottest spec script, the one adapted from the graphic novel based on a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story as envisioned by his
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Watching Paul Anka

I went to a Paul Anka concert a couple of years ago and I learned something that I use now, every day, in my writing. Do you remember Paul Anka?
He was a teen idol back in the days of Fabian and Frankie Avalon. He's still an extremely popular performer, who sells out shows around the
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The Will to Victory

Chapter 19.  The Will to Victory
When Alexander was a boy, a party of traders came to Pella, the Macedonian capital, selling trained warhorses. Philip the king and all his officers went down to the plain to put these mounts through their paces.
One horse, called Bucephalus, was by far the fastest, strongest and bravest—but he was so
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Counting

When I was twelve, counting my age in silverware got me to the end of my unloading the dishwasher chore: five forks, five knives, two serving spoons and a butter knife to grow on.
When I was in college, just over a thousand steps, counting every other time my right foot hit the ground, got me
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"Sit Chilly"

My friend Daphne used to take riding lessons from a legendary horsewoman in Carmel Valley, California named Sue Sally Hale. Have you ever heard of Sue Sally?
Sue Sally competed in polo matches for twenty years disguised as a man (she used to daub mascara on her upper lip to simulate a mustache, while tucking her
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The Joys of Misery

Chapter 17   The Joys of Misery
Among all elite U.S. forces, the Marine Corps is unique in that its standards for strength, athleticism and physical hardiness are not exceptional. What separates Marines, instead, is their capacity to endure adversity.
Marines take a perverse pride in having colder chow, crappier equipment and higher casualty rates than any
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