I wrote in last week’s post that I would have to kill myself if I couldn’t write. That wasn’t hyperbole. Here in no particular order are the activities and aspirations that don’t work for me (and I’ve tried them all extensively, as I imagine you have too if you’ve logged onto this blog.)

If you’re a working writer struggling to get published (or published again) or wrestling with the utility or non-utility of self-publishing, you may log onto this blog and think, Oh, Pressfield’s got it made; he’s had real-world success; he’s a brand. Trust me, it ain’t necessarily so. I don’t expect to be reviewed by the New York Times. Ever. The last time was 1998 for Gates of Fire. The War of Art was never reviewed, The Lion’s Gate never. My other seven novels never. My recent novel, The Knowledge, came out a while ago. It was reviewed nowhere by no…

About a year ago I wrote a series of posts titled “Report From the Trenches.” They were about a particularly ugly run of months when I was struggling to make a book-in-progress work. The good news is that in the end (I think) the process succeeded. The bad news is I’m back in that same place on the next book. I never learn. I forget each time how back-breaking it was the time before. One of my favorite movies of the past few years is Margin Call, written and directed by J.C. Chandor. It’s roughly about the market crash of 2008,…

John Naber won four swimming gold medals at the ’76 Olympic Games in Montreal, each in world-record time. He said something in an interview once that sticks with me to this day. A reporter asked Naber, “What’s the difference between a good swimmer and a great swimmer?” Here’s how Naber answered (I’m paraphrasing from memory): The thing about competitive swimming is that the instant you hit the water, you enter the Pain Zone. Your heart is hammering, your lungs are on fire, your muscles are straining to their maximum. It’s hell. The difference between a good swimmer and a great…

The actress reads a book or screenplay and says, “I want to do this.” We applaud her vision. The editor discovers a manuscript and publishes it. We salute his taste. The director, the producer, the financier find a hot property and scoop it up. We give ’em an award. I’m not saying these artists don’t deserve their plaudits. All I’m saying is It all begins with the writer. The fun starts with you and me. Everybody else waits downstream. Everyone else comes late to the party. Others may interpret. They may mount, they may discover, they may finance, underwrite, refine,…

  If you’re an aspiring writer (or even an established one), you’ve seen websites and seminars and workshops that promise to “help you write a bestseller.” I’ve read and attended some of these myself. And I’ve learned from them. They haven’t been a complete waste. But let’s dig a little deeper and ask ourselves what’s going on in our minds when we buy into such a promise. “Bestseller” in this lexicon equals “success.” The promise between the lines is   “This will change your life”   Fill in the blanks for what you imagine that means. Money. Fame. A better…

Remember The Way We Were, the 1973 blockbuster starring-vehicle for Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford? The theme song, sung by Babs, won an Oscar; the film itself was rated by AFI as #6 on the list of Greatest Love Stories of All Time. But let’s focus, you and I, on the THEME and how it is expressed in the Opening and Closing Images. Remember our third rule of In and Outs Club: The opening and closing images must be on-theme. The In to The Way We Were is the titles sequence. It’s a montage of quick scenes of students at…

“I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion … “ These are the opening lines of The Godfather. They’re spoken in extreme closeup by the undertaker Bonasera in a heavy Italian accent. Bonasera speaks out of deep shadow. He recounts with painful emotion how his beautiful young daughter, defending her honor, was brutally beaten by two young men, “not Italians,” whom the American courts subsequently let go free. The camera slowly pulls back as Bonasera relates his daughter’s woe, until the frame has widened enough that we begin to see…

  We’ve been talking in this series about Ins and Outs—Opening and Closing Images in books and movies. We declared that the first rule of Ins and Outs Club is The Opening and Closing Images of our story should resonate with each other. They should look as alike as reasonably possible. An example we cited was the 1953 Western Shane, where the lone-rider hero (played by Alan Ladd) enters the Valley on the In and exits via the exact same path on the Out. We said that the second rule of Ins and Outs Club is At the same time,…

  Last night for some reason I found myself thinking about my darkest hours as a writer. The period lasted about ten years, more if I include a contiguous stretch where I was too paralyzed to write at all. Was it Resistance? Was that the foe? No. The enemy was self-doubt. Or put another way, lack of self-belief. I may be wrong but I have a feeling that’s the Big Enemy for all of us. In a way, Resistance is self-doubt. That’s the form it takes. That’s the weapon it uses against us. But self-doubt somehow transcends Resistance. It stands…