Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 146

Writing Wednesdays #18: Self-Doubt

True confessions: I'm 95% through a project I've been working on for two years, and I find myself suddenly wracked with self-doubt. All the negative thoughts that we're all so familiar with are surfacing. Have I screwed the pooch? Have I lost my mojo? Do I really have anything worth saying?

I know the tune. The question is: What do I do about it?

I want to share my internal process, because we all go through these dark hours. Here's how I'm handling the current raft of B.S. inside my head.

One Tribe At A Time #9: My Back Pages

[Some of the smartest and most interesting input we've received on this blog has come from the Comments section. Alas, such contributions often go unnoticed, buried as they are in the "back pages." In an attempt to rectify this, I'd like to present here on the front page a very insightful response to Maj. Jim Gant's paper, "One Tribe At A Time," from former infantry platoon leader and Brigade Intelligence Officer Jim Gourley--along with a reply-in-depth from Maj. Gant. This is long, but...

Writing Wednesdays #17: Finishing and Starting

There's a story in The War of Art about the afternoon when I finally, finally finished my first novel manuscript–after failing ignominiously in numerous attempts over the previous ten years. I was living in a little town in Northern California then; I trotted down the street to my friend and mentor Paul Rink and told him the triumphant news. "Good for you," he said without looking up. "Start the next one tomorrow."

There's big-time wisdom in what Paul said and here's why:

Keeping up the mo

Paul...

One Tribe At A Time #8: E-mails from the Troops

[This is going to be a long post. What follows are just some of hundreds of e-mails received by Maj. Gant in response to his paper, "One Tribe At a Time."  The first is from Luke Murray, who lost his leg in an IED strike near Sarkhani, Afghanistan on 18 July 2003 as a member of Maj. Gant's ODA 316. He gave permission to post his e-mail to the blog.:]

Jim,

Just finished reading your paper. I have been following it on Mr. Pressfield's blog for the last couple weeks. Being one of the privileged...

Interview w/Tribal Chief #8: Is Time Running Out?

SP:  Chief Zazai, we hear every day in the American press that things are "going wrong," "getting worse," "we are losing." Even in one of your recent e-mails to me, you said "time is running out, things are going more wrong." Can you give us some specifics? What exactly is "going wrong?" Why is "time running out?"

Chief Zazai: Let's start with the type of regime that the West, with all good intentions, has helped to set up in Afghanistan. I think it is  clear that the kind of democracy which...

Writing Wednesdays #16: "The First Five Pages"

Trust me, this is not just for beginners

I had been writing professionally for 30 years when I read Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages, a Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile–and I still learned a ton of valuable stuff. Get this book. If you're an aspiring writer, it'll save you from the agony of unnecessary rejection. (You may still get rejected, but at least it won't be unnecessarily.) Even if you're a grizzled pro, Mr. Lukeman's short, smart book is worth reading just to...

One Tribe at a Time #7: Size Matters, continued

If a Tribal Engagement Strategy (TES) were to be tried in Afghanistan, how exactly would it work?

Last week, in the first part of this "Size Matters" post, we spoke with Maj. Jim Gant about the optimal size for a single U.S. Tribal Engagement Team (TET)—that is, the tactical unit that would be attached to a single Afghan tribe. Maj. Gant strongly advocated the position that smaller is better. Six to twelve men, no more.

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An Interview with an Afghan Tribal Chief, Part #1

Chief Zazai, right, with his father, Chief Raiss Afzal Khan Zazi and his bodyguard, both murdered in 2000

[The blog is out of town this week.  Here is a re-boot of our first post in this ongoing series. See you Monday!:]

This will be the first of a multi-part conversation with Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai of Paktia province, Afghanistan. Let's plunge right in.

SP: Chief Zazai, this summer you were elected to the paramountcy of eleven tribes in your home region in Paktia province along the border with...

Writing Wednesdays #15: Elements of Success

I was making a long drive this week, across the desert from L.A. to Phoenix, and I got to thinking about the elements that comprise success-particularly for people like us, e.g. writers, artists and entrepreneurs, who work from the heart and on their own, without any imposed external structure. What are the skill-sets we need? Over a lifetime, what challenges do we need to master?

In today's post, I'm attaching a podcast of an interview I did with Jen Grisanti, who helms a Los Angeles-based a

One Tribe At A Time #6: Size Matters

[Today we have a special follow-up interview with Maj. Jim Gant, on the subject of how big (or small) a Tribal Engagement Team should be—and what kind of large-scale support it would need. But first I want to say thanks to the many, many readers who have responded to Maj. Gant's paper "One Tribe At A Time" and to all the members of the military, policy and journalism communities who have helped to circulate it. Special thanks to James Dao of the N.Y. Times ("Going Tribal in Afghanistan")...