Steven Pressfield

Stories We Tell Ourselves

By Steven Pressfield |

A couple of years ago I was struggling to finish a novel called The Profession. I was lost. The book was dying. It was a Bad Moment. Enter Shawn. This is when it’s great to have a friend/editor/literary Kahuna who really knows his stuff. Shawn flew out to L.A. from New York and we beat our brains out for a couple of days. I remember vividly what he finally said: “You know what this book is about? It’s about stories. We all have stories that we tell ourselves about what our lives are—and those stories are always wrong.” That was…

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Good Guy Speeches

By Steven Pressfield |

We were talking last week about Villain Speeches. But there are some great Good Guy speeches too. I’m not even sure what to call these. Here’s one from Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham. In the story, Nuke Laloosh (Tim Robbins), the clueless but athletically gifted pitcher, has just been called up to the major leagues, “the Show.” Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), who has been mentoring Nuke in the minors, has just heard the news. Crash knows that he himself is never going to get that life-changing phone call, even though he’s ten times smarter than Nuke and has worked ten times…

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Start With the Villain

By Steven Pressfield |

I’m a huge fan of Villain Speeches. There’s nothing better in a movie or a book than the moment when the stage is cleared and Satan gets to say his piece. The villain in Gunga Din, played by the great Italian actor Eduardo Ciannelli, is called simply “the Guru.” He’s like Gandhi, if Gandhi had traded non-violence for mega-violence. This speech is kicked off by Cary Grant, as British sergeant Archibald Cutter, confronting the Guru in outrage over his extremely clever plan to lure Cutter’s regiment into a trap and massacre it to the last man. CARY GRANT You’re mad! THE…

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A Natural Life

By Steven Pressfield |

Being a writer is not a natural life. Of course it’s not natural working in a coal mine or a cubicle either. What is a “natural life” anyway? Is it living in alignment with evolution? Is it the nomadic life, the hunter’s life, the farmer’s life? If we live in the city, have we cut ourselves off from the organic voyages, migrations, and rhythms of the human soul? The life of the artist is artificial. Art by definition is artificial. What exactly is the artist’s life? What shape does it take, day-to-day? What you and I do as artists and…

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Giving Notes

By Steven Pressfield |

Giving notes is the phrase used in the movie business to mean reviewing or critiquing a screenplay or treatment or even a short pitch. Getting notes is when you’re the one on the receiving end. Both positions are really hard. I’ve lost friends. People have stopped talking to me. For a while I simply refused to give notes. I would not read anything. It was too dangerous. Here are the rules I follow now: 1. I NEVER read anything from someone I don’t know. Beyond the agony flowing in both directions there’s the problem of plagiarism. Suppose I’m working on…

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Principals and Profiles, Part Two

By Steven Pressfield |

This is an edgy subject and maybe I should stay away from it, but I feel like I want to squeeze it a little more, so here goes. To review quickly, we were saying a couple of weeks ago that sometimes a public figure or personality (the “principal”) will be stalked or cyber-stalked or just plain bugged by a fan/frenemy/hater (the “profile.”) And that each of us probably has both tendencies-in-potential in our psyches. The reason I’m exploring this is to see if we can learn something that will help us. A couple of observations: You don’t have to be…

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Jackson Browne’s Piano coming through the Floor

By Steven Pressfield |

Did you see that docu on TV the other night about the history of the Eagles? I was watching it (enjoying it tremendously) when one moment leapt out at me. I’m paraphrasing from memory now, so forgive me if I get some of this wrong: Glenn Frey was telling the story. He was talking about the early 70s in L.A., before the Eagles were even a band, or maybe just after they had gotten started. He and Don Henley were playing gigs (they had backed up Linda Ronstadt for a while) but they were not writing their own material. They…

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The Principal and the Profile

By Steven Pressfield |

My friend Jane worked for years for a legendary personality of the 20th century. I’m respecting her wishes by not using the gentleman’s name. Let’s call him Michael. Michael was a target for the tabloids and the paparazzi. He was besieged relentlessly by fans and admirers, cranks, crazies, and outright stalkers. He lived on an estate. The place became a fortress. It got so bad that Michael had to employ bodyguards and a professional “threat assessor.” The threat assessor wound up teaching everyone on Michael’s staff how to respond to a certain type of persistent assailant. The dynamic was so…

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The Understory

By Steven Pressfield |

I was laid up in bed with the flu this week and wound up watching the first two Bourne movies, starring Matt Damon, back-to-back. The experience got me thinking about the Understory. When I start a new book, I open a file and title it UNDERSTORY. The understory is the architecture that undergirds and supports the surface story. In the first Bourne movie, The Bourne Identity, the surface story starts like this: Jason Bourne is floating unconscious at sea, with two bullets in his back. A fishing boat rescues him. When he comes to, JB has no memory of who…

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Opportunities are Bullshit, Part Two

By Steven Pressfield |

I’ve been feeling a little bad about the first Opportunities Are Bullshit post a few weeks ago. Particularly after Callie’s wonderful “Nella from France” follow-on. My post was a bit of a rant, I confess. Ventilation of a pet peeve. I probably overstated the case. So lemme try again. We all want our stuff to be seen. If we’re singers or actors or website designers, we want our work to find its hour in the sun. So we’re vulnerable to “opportunities.” What is an “opportunity?” It’s what a producing entity–a website, a seminar, a movie or music producer, a publisher,…

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