[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…

[First, huge thanks to everybody who wrote in in response to last week’s When It Works. Wonderful stuff, from the heart. It’s tremendously gratifying to me, I must say, to see this site evolving into a real peer-to-peer meeting ground–and I include myself as one of those peers. I picked four “winners” instead of three, but could easily have chosen ten or more. Congrats to Anjanette, Stef, David Layton and Dana. I’ll get your signed War of Arts out right away. Thanks to everybody! Now to this Wednesday’s post … ] Have you seen the director’s cut of Apocalypse Now?…

I want to try something different this week. I’d like to ask our readers to write in. What I’m looking for is mini-posts about a moment in your writing or painting or filmmaking or any artistic or entrepreneurial career “when it worked.” When your stuff actually connected person-to-person. Here’s the kind of moment I mean: When It Worked Moment #1 This just happened last week. Gates of Fire is a historical novel I wrote; it’s about the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.  I got the following e-mail (and the photo on the right) from a staff sergeant in the Special…

[First, many thanks to everyone who made our two-day $1.99 special on the eBook version of The War of Art so successful. The switchboards were lighting up like the Fourth of July. Even if you just browsed and didn’t pull the trigger, thanks for the thought. Your interest and attention are very much appreciated. [As of today, the FastPencil price on The War of Art goes back to $9.99. All other platforms set their own freight. We have no influence, alas. (Meanwhile, I’m hard at work on The War of Art 2.0., which I hope to have in six months…

Once upon a time, I worked in advertising. I used to write those TWO DAYS ONLY (exclamation point!) headlines all the time, for toothpaste or dog food or checking accounts. It’s a giggle to be doing it now for The War of Art. Here’s a link to the store. Today and tomorrow only—10/20 and 10/21—get the eBook for a buck ninety-nine. Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks (iPad and iPhone), Barnes & Noble Nook, Borders Kobo and Ingram Digital. There’s also a .pdf version you can download and read on your computer. If anything goes wrong, write me or Michael Ashley—[email protected]—and we’ll…

One of the mantras of Writing Wednesdays is the ongoing effort to think like a professional, work like a professional, be a professional. But sometimes it’s not so bad to be a lucky amateur either. To wit, here’s a serendipitous tale from a couple of weeks ago. I had just received the umpteenth note—this time via Facebook—from a frustrated reader who was trying to order the Kindle eBook of The War of Art. (The Amazon page has been crashing regularly since it first went up.)  “Why,” the reader wanted to know, “does Amazon keep saying there’s no such book? And why…

Let’s plunge right in, picking up our interview with Hollywood story consultant Jen Grisanti: SP: Jen, what are your own favorite “All Is Lost” moments from movies?  Can you give us one from something recent and then break it down for us? JG:  I love the “All Is Lost” moment from the George Clooney movie, Up In The Air, screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner from the novel by Walter Kirn. To set the stage, Ryan (Clooney) is an executive whose job is to fire people. When companies downsize, they outsource this unpleasant task to the company Ryan works…

The lady plans to seduce her lover. Her object is to create a night of magic. How does she do it? First the setting, the lighting, the music. The mood, the wine … the lady orchestrates every detail. Her skin, her hair, her scent. She alters her voice, her walk, she paints on those witchy-woman eyes. Ooh, don’t forget those six-inch Manolos. But there’s more to the spell. The finishing touches lie in how she greets her lover; their talk, the rhythm of the evening, the dance between them. Almost imperceptibly the moment steals upon the pair. The lady is…

I’ve never posted an interview in this Writing Wednesdays slot (see “The Creative Process” series below on this page), but the following confab with story expert Jen Grisanti seemed to fit so perfectly that I thought I’d feature it up here “above the fold.” Today is Part One of a two-part interview. Jen Grisanti is a Hollywood story consultant and the author of the upcoming Story Line—a book that is sure to become an instant classic and rock the worlds of a boatload of screenwriters, novelists and other storytellers. Jen made her bones in the ‘90s, working for Aaron Spelling…

My friend Paul is writing a cop novel. The characters have seized him; he’s into it totally. “But it’s coming to me very dark,” he says. “I mean twisted, weird-dark. So dark it’s scaring me.” Paul wants to know if he should throttle back. He’s worried that the book will come out so evil, no one will want to touch it. Answer: no way. The darker the better, if that’s how it’s coming to him. Why do I say this? Because for writers—particularly ones at the beginning of their careers—Job #1 is testing their limits. Finding out who they are.…