Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 144

WRITING WEDNESDAYS #23: SPECKING IT

I moved from New York to Hollywood in the mid-eighties. This was the era of the "spec script"–a concept that has been of great use to me on many fronts beyond screenwriting. It might help you too.

An endangered species

Today the spec script is beyond endangered; it's just about extinct. Tinseltown's bread and butter for most the past decade has been the pre-branded, franchiseable blockbuster–Spiderman, Iron Man, Transformers. I can understand that. It costs so much in today's environment to...

What's Next?

Have you read about the Slow-Word Movement?

I was thinking about it long before I knew there was a name defining it, much less a movement behind it.

Formulating ideas, researching, writing, posting to the blog, Twitter and Facebook, and replying to comments left on the blog, Twitter and Facebook, takes time—as does the day-to-day stuff we all face, such as cleaning, maintaining our homes, and nurturing our relationships with our friends, family, and colleagues—oh, and there's work, too. . . ...

Writing Wednesdays #22: Just Do It

  

Nike made a slam dunk with its "Just Do It" campaign. Years old, yet it is still encouraging people to get moving. Do something.

 

Mark McGuinness hit it home with his recent post up on Lateral Action, where he reminds us:

 

A creative person is a person who creates things.

You either create something or you don't. Period.

 

Common sense, right? Yet how many people still hang with the "Just Think About It" failed slogan instead?

 

I've started the blog off this year with a Q&A with William S...

Shame and Honor, not Hearts and Minds: an interview with William S. "MAC" McCallister, #2

Download "COIN and Irregular Warfare in a Tribal Society" to your computer, or view it right now.

SP: This sentence from your paper COIN and Irregular Warfare in a Tribal Society is just one of many standouts:

"Shame and...

Writing Wednesdays #6: Write What You Don't Know

[While the blog is out of town over New Year's, here's a reader-favorite post to tide us all over.  Happy New Year!:]

Probably the most classic kernel of writing advice is "Write What You Know." On the surface, that seems to make a lot of sense, and I'm sure it has worked for thousands and thousands of writers. It didn't work for me.

When I was a beginning writer I had two literary heroes: Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway. A lot of aspiring writers in my era had those guys as heroes. Kerouac...

COIN in a Tribal Society: an interview with William S. "Mac" McCallister

William S. "Mac" McCallister is a retired military officer, a U.S. Army major, who served in numerous special operations assignments specializing in civil-military, psychological and information operations, with focuses in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

I was introduced to Mac a few weeks ago, when he forwarded to Maj. Jim Gant his paper "COIN and Irregular Warfare in a Tribal Society," which he'd written in 2007, and which focuses on Iraq. Mac was in Iraq around the same time Maj. Gant...

Happy Christmas/Hannukah/New Year!

My wish is that our readers are taking this season off, just like I am.  I do want to take this moment, though, to say special thanks to the friends and partners who helped get this blog off the ground six months ago and whose hard work has kept it aloft ever since.

Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai, right, greets Haji Marjan, Tribal Chief and member of the tribal council in Zazi

Extraordinary thanks to Amanda Tunnell, who started everything; to Jeff Simon and Printer Bowler, who designed everything; and ...

Writing Wednesdays #21: Sticking Points

Have you ever hit the wall? I have. Over and over. On any project–I don't care how dazzlingly it starts out–inevitably the truck runs into a lake of goo.

Here's what I've learned about sticking points.

Why there'll always be an England

First, though they feel like defeats, sticking points are actually good signs. A sticking point means we've arrived at a threshold. We're on the brink of moving to a higher level. That's the good news. The bad news is that when Resistance gets wind of our...

Guest Blog by Andrew Lubin: Let the Afghan Army Fight

[Again, we're pleased to have this fresh post from independent correspondent Andrew Lubin, who has just returned from six weeks in Afghanistan, where he was embedded with Army and Marine troops and spent time with their Afghan National Army counterparts. Here's Part Two of Prof. Lubin's report.:]

Training the Afghans how to shoot and move is the easy part. A typical Afghan soldier can probably beat an American tri-athlete up a steep hill; add in the flak, Kevlar and other equipment our troops...

Interview w/Tribal Chief #11: Pakistan, continued

SP: Chief Zazai, last week we were talking about Pakistan and you said there were in fact four Pakistans: the bureaucrats who are always in power, the current elected government, the army, and finally what you called the "Shadowy government" of ex-ISI and army officers who exert tremendous unseen influence.

This week let's get local and focus on your home district, the Zazi Valley in Paktia province in Afghanistan, where you are the paramount chief of eleven Pashtun tribes. You have said in...