Writing Wednesdays
I just came in from getting my stuff ready for the gym tomorrow–packing my bag, loading up my gear, leaving it in the car. It got me thinking about one of the most useful books I’ve ever read, Dr. Robert Cialdini‘s Influence. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. In the book, Dr. Cialdini lays out seven proven ways to influence other people–in other words, to get them to do what we want them to do. One way, for example, is the Principle of Reciprocity. If Joe does X for me, I will feel an obligation to do…
Read MoreMy friend Paul is writing a cop novel (I mentioned this in an earlier post, on the subject of trusting your instincts, even the darker ones–particularly the darker ones.) Paul has written screenplays and stuff for TV, but he’s never tackled a novel, which is really his native medium. At the same time, he’s writing more from his true center than he ever has. Paul’s about halfway through and, though he puts up a brave front when I ask him how he’s feeling, I can tell from his eyes that he’s in full panic mode. He looks like a rabbit caught…
Read MoreDid you ever see the movie Wag the Dog, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Deniro, directed by Barry Levinson and written by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet? The film is about a lot of things, but at its core it’s a portrait of a Hollywood producer. The character of Stanley Motss, played by Dustin Hoffman, is, by all accounts, a spot-on portrayal of Robert Evans (who produced The Godfather and Chinatown, among many others.) What does a producer do? Nobody knows. Even in the movie biz, no one appreciates the producer’s art. “Did you know,” Dustin Hoffman complains at one point…
Read MoreI did an interview for Ishita Gupta and Matt Atkinson’s online magazine fear.less that’s going to run in January. I was proofing the text this morning and I thought, “There’s a section in here that’ll be perfect for an end-of-year Writing Wednesdays post.” The section was about Mike Nichols. His AFI Lifetime Achievement tribute had just aired a couple of days earlier. On the show a number of actors including Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep had thanked Mr. Nichols, quite emotionally, for among other things creating a safe space for them in front of the camera. It struck me that…
Read MoreIn our “What It Takes” series (adjacent), we’re getting into the inside stuff of publishing, marketing and promoting The Profession, my upcoming novel. Here, for a look at the other side, is an event from the writing of the book. Here is every writer’s worst nightmare: When it crashes. When the wheels come off smack in the middle of the project—and you’re left dazed by the side of the road, staring at the smoking wreckage of your work. That happened with this book. Last Christmas, two years into it. I thought I was finished. I thought the book was done.…
Read More[Continuing our “What It Takes” series, an inside look at the process of publishing and promoting a book in 2010-11 … here’s Post #3:] The first book signing I ever did was for The Legend of Bagger Vance. It was at a Books-a-Million store in Lakeland, Florida. I flew 3000 miles from Los Angeles. Nobody showed. Not a soul. I felt terrible for the store manager, who had set up a beautiful table with stacks of books and even a poster-sized photo of me. We were there at seven in the evening, all alone. It was like a scene out…
Read MoreI’m going to try something new over the next few months. Remember, a few weeks ago, we commandeered this Writing Wednesdays space to post a series called, with apologies to John Steinbeck, a “A Writer’s Journal of (Finishing) a Novel?” I was, then, in the final writing throes of a book I’d been working on for the past three years, and I posted a blow-by-blow account of that adventure. Well, now I’d like to do that for the next stage: the editing, publicizing and marketing process. This doesn’t mean the end of our regular Writing Wednesdays posts, I promise. But…
Read More[The blog is on vacation this week. Happy Thanksgiving to all! Here’s one of my fave posts from a little while ago:] Two of the most popular movies of the past few years are The Hangover and The Bourne Identity. What do they have in common? They’re both amnesia stories. I love amnesia stories. What could be more fun? Guy wakes up face-down on the floor of a villa in Vegas, or floating in a wetsuit off the coast of Marseilles. He remembers nothing. Who is he? How did he get there? And where the hell did that tiger in the bathroom…
Read MoreHere’s a subtle but crucial point for us to hold in mind as we slog through the trench warfare of the artist’s journey, battling Resistance every step of the way. Remember: Resistance arises second. What comes first is the idea, the passion, the work we are so excited to create that it scares the shit out of us. Resistance is the response of the frightened, petty, small-time ego to the brave, generous, magnificent impulse of the creative self. Resistance is the shadow cast by the innovative self’s sun. What does this mean to us, as we duel our demons? It…
Read More[The following excerpt from Rosanne Cash‘s Composed hit me like a two-by-four between the eyes. Thanks to Ms. Cash for permission to run it. The book is brand-new and it’s keeping me up nights. It should be required reading, in my opinion, for all serious writers, artists and musicians, particularly women. But judge for yourself. I’m giving over the whole of today’s post to this passage from Rosanne Cash’s Composed. [Note: “King’s” is King’s Record Shop, the 1987 album that produced four #1 singles. And now: over to you, Rosanne …] It was late in the making of King’s that…
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