Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 78

Shawn’s Free Video Mini-Course

Shawn Coyne and I have been really dumb in the way we operate this blog and Shawn’s www.storygrid.com. We keep giving stuff away that we should be “monetizing.”
Here we go again (actually Shawn is the main Dumb Guy behind this) with a five-part free mini-course based on Shawn’s wonderful book The Story Grid, about the
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To Review or Not to Review: Externalities in the Making

If you find yourself visiting San Antonio with a child in need of an emergency room, you’ll also find yourself in need of advice on which hospital to choose.
If you read FiveThirtyEight, once you’re on the other side of the emergency room visit and on your way home, you might start thinking about Mona Chalabi’s
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“I’m On A Mission”

For years I lived “the way the day took me.” I’m not knocking that, either as a temporary default mode or as a way of life. It can be fun. You can find yourself, in a good way, in places you never imagined you’d be. You can meet great people. You can learn a lot.

But
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First Reads

[Join www.storygrid.com to read more of Shawn’s Stuff]





A friend of mine wrote a wonderful novel.  It combined what I think is the best of the old-school thriller narrative stylists (big canvass) with a haunting contemporary “What if?”
My acquiring editor head (the one I used when I worked at the Big Five houses
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The Artist’s Most Important Skill

What single skill is most critical to the artist?
Is it talent? Imagination? Mastery of her craft?
Is it profundity of insight, depth of compassion, understanding of human nature? A passion for truth? Capacity for hard work? The ability to overcome criticism and negativity?
Or is it something more crass, more commercial? The ability to brand herself? To
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Horse Sense: “Lay a Little Heavy on the Business Side” Revisited

(This post first ran July 4th of last year. I’m revisiting it now on the heels of a visit with a young artist who I hope stands his ground and fights for a fair deal.)
Would you have said no to Elvis Presley?
Imagine Elvis calling you back in the day.
He loves a song you’ve written, wants
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Blake Snyder’s Fun and Games

Have you heard of Blake Snyder? He was a screenwriter and writer of several terrific books about screenwriting (tragically he died in 2009 at fifty-one) including Save The Cat! (23 printings so far) and Save the Cat Goes To The Movies. Highly recommended.
Blake Snyder was famous for his “beat sheet.” This was his original, funny,
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The Magic Pill

[Join www.storygrid.com to read more of Shawn’s Stuff]
If there is one question that I get asked again and again and again, it’s this:
Is there a resource available that lists all of the conventions and obligatory scenes of each and every genre?

The short answer to this is “not that I’m aware of.”
I have a theory
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Learning the Craft

If you and I want to be taken seriously as writers, it goes without saying that we have to study the craft. However we do it (read Aristotle, enroll in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, study McKee and Coyne and Stephen King), we must learn the timeless principles of storytelling with the same thoroughness that a
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Contracts and the Art of Driveway Grading

I’m married to a numbers guy who taught me the art involved with math and business. Before him, I ran from numbers.
This afternoon, I spoke with a guy who said there’s an art to grading a driveway. Thinking back to what my husband taught me about numbers, I don’t doubt the art of the driveway
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