ARCHIVES OF May, 2011
By Steven Pressfield | Published: May 11, 2011
Have you ever noticed that addicts are often extremely interesting people?
Addiction itself is excruciatingly boring, in that it’s so predictable. The lies, the evasions, the transparent self-justification and self-exoneration. But the addict himself is often a colorful and compelling person. His story reads like a novel, packed with drama, intrigue, conflict and heartbreak. If the addict’s drug of choice is alcohol, the narrative is frequently one of job loss, domestic abuse, divorce, abandonment of children, bankruptcy. If Class One narcotics are the culprit, the tale often includes crime, the law, violence, even death.
Of course we fallible mortals can be addicted to a lot of things. To love, to sex, to worship of our children or parents, to dominance, to submission. We can even be addicted to ourselves (check the manual under “self-iconization,” e.g. Charlie Sheen, Donald Trump.) Such individuals can be absolutely fascinating at the same time that they’re boring as hell.
What’s the connection between addiction and Resistance? (more…)
By Steven Pressfield | Published: May 9, 2011
Below are some of the dusty tomes I studied in writing The Warrior Ethos. Does the word “arcane” ring a bell? Reading these is like getting beaten up with a bag of ball bearings. Trust me, if the library at Quantanamo Bay contained nothing but these books, there would be no need for “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The prisoners would sing like birds. “Please! No more! I’ll tell you anything you want!”
I know just how he feels.
I’m the opposite. I love this stuff. Unearthing Frontinus’ The Strategemata
deep in the library stacks, I was as psyched as Quentin Tarantino when he first got his hands on the master tapes for Didn’t I Blow Your Mind This Time
by the Delfonics.
I can’t get enough of these obscure old texts. They’re like salted peanuts to me. Tracking them down, I’m like Harry Potter digging through the Wizard Files. This stuff is occult gold. It’s Alchemy 101. What I love most is the flashes you get across thousands of years when you recognize people just like us.
There’s a totally obscure manual from the fourth century B.C. called How to Survive Under Siege
by Aineias the Tactician. That’s what the book is about: literally how to survive in a fortified city when you’re being besieged. One of the tricks the Tactician suggests, to fool the enemy into thinking you have more warriors than you actually have, is to dress the city’s wives and mothers in men’s armor and helmets and have them parade around the battlements, carrying spears alongside the men. Aineias appends one critical proviso however:
Instruct these women not to hurl any stones down from the parapets, as the besiegers, when they discern the feminine throwing motion, will see through the ruse and reckon that your defenders are not men. (more…)
By Shawn Coyne | Published: May 6, 2011
Steve Pressfield and I have worked together in one form or another for almost fifteen years. I’ve been his editor, his publisher, his manager/agent, and his business partner. In that time he’s written ten books—seven novels and three works of nonfiction. In all of those years, he’s been in the dark about exactly how an agent sells a book to a publisher.
I learned this the other day when we were kibitzing on the phone. Since he started in this racket, he’s put his trust in the professionals he chose to work with and let them do their jobs without looking over their shoulder. I suspect he thought that it would be bad form to grill them about how they solicit offers. There might be some secret handshake or good old time graft at play. (more…)
