Steven Pressfield Blog
The McGuffin in “A Man at Arms”
We’ve talked in earlier posts about “the McGuffin,” i.e. the item or person that the villain wants. Let’s examine this today in terms of the genesis of A Man at Arms.
The Genesis of “A Man at Arms”
My niece Meredith was getting married. She asked me to be the officiant.
Lawrence of Arabia’s Private Moment
Can you stand one more post about Private Moments?
Show ’em where the bullets strike
I never realized till I worked on movie sets that it’s not the director who shoots most of the action stuff. It’s the Second Unit Director. (Not always, but most of the time.)
CBS This Morning
The tale of Telamon in A Man at Arms is one I’ll never tire of.
Pike decides to die
William Holden plays Pike Bishop, the leader of the “Wild Bunch,” in the 1969 movie of the same name. He has one of the all-time great Private Moments toward the end of the final reel.
Are You Too Scared to Sell Yourself?
I am. The illustration below is by the renowned and redoubtable Victor Juhasz. It expresses exactly the way I feel when a book is done and it’s time to get out and sell it.
The Power of a Private Moment
Why is a Private Moment so powerful in a book or movie?
Thank You, Tom Guinzburg
My original manuscript for Gates of Fire, back in 1996, was 802 pages long.
The Girl in the Moon
When you and I as writers are looking to deliver a Big Moment, we often think it has to come in a rock-em-sock-em, five-star, dyn-o-mite scene in which characters are passionately declaiming at one another, if not firing guns, crashing cars, and blowing up the planet.
A Man At Arms is now available to order!
Don't miss out on exclusive bonuses available to early buyers!
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers— advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
THE WAR OF ART
Read this one first.
It identifies the enemy—what I call Resistance with a capital “R,” i.e. fear, self-doubt, procrastination, perfectionism, all the forms of self-sabotage—that stop us from doing our work and realizing our dreams.
Start here.
Everything else proceeds from this.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
