Writing Wednesdays
As a 22-year-old lieutenant, Giora Romm became the first fighter pilot ace (shooting down five enemy planes) of the Israel Air Force during the Six Day War of 1967. It was my great good fortune and honor to have met Giora and interviewed him (and his wife Miriam) for The Lion’s Gate (Penguin Sentinel 2014). Giora passed away this Saturday after a long battle with cancer. He was 78.
Read MoreA story from WWII: In the early fighting in Southeast Asia, the Japanese were seriously kicking the British Army’s butt. Things had reached such a desperate pass that an entire division, including its Gurkha components, had to be airlifted 1500 miles to safety—an emergency evacuation, though smaller, nearly on a par with Dunkirk.
Read MoreThere are certain skills that must be mastered by every writer, artist, entrepreneur, and athlete if she or he wishes to succeed. These skills are not taught in school. Many don’t even have a name.
Read MoreWe said in last week’s post that self-doubt was simply Resistance. And that the stronger it was, the more certain we could be that we were on the right track.
Read MoreHave you ever met a writer (usually a very young one) who tells you, “I love to write! I can’t wait to sit down each morning. I love everything about it!”
Read MoreForgive me if I keep coming back to the idea of a Passage through the Wilderness. I started this series of posts originally because I wanted to tie it in to my just-published memoir, GOVT CHEESE, which is about my own Wilderness Passage. But I keep coming back to the topic because it seems so central to all of our lives—and particularly our “hero’s journey” odyssey that leads us to our calling as artists and as human beings.
Read MoreI was working on a screenplay a few years ago with director Andy Davis (The Fugitive, Under Siege, Above the Law) when he got an odd, dissatisfied look on his face.
Read MoreAt my friend Norm’s memorial a couple of months ago, his son Matt got up to speak. Norm died at 94, so Matt was closing in on his own seventies. Here’s a story he told about his father.
Read MoreI don’t have many heroes, but one of them is Seth Godin. Do you know him? I’d try to pin Seth down in one phrase but the range of his work is so vast—from one of his early companies, Yoyodyne, through his ground-breaking books Tribes and Purple Cow and Linchpin (not to mention his educational masterpiece, the altMBA Program) and his current collective anti-climate-change enterprise, The Carbon Almanac––that the best I can say to describe him is “VISIONARY.”
Read MoreWe were talking last week of the collective wilderness passage of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. But there’s another great collective passage closer to home.
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