ARCHIVES OF July, 2011
By Steven Pressfield | Published: July 13, 2011
Many thanks to Jonathan Fields for forwarding this interview from the Paris Review, Spring 1958 issue, between Ernest Hemingway and (referring to himself only as “Interviewer”) George Plimpton, the magazine’s founder and editor. This is quite a famous conversation; I’ve read it myself a number of times over the years. If you haven’t been exposed to it, it’s definitely worth your time.
Here’s the link to the full interview. If I don’t get any cease-and-desist notes from the Paris Review (it’s still alive and well—click the link in the first sentence), we’ll post the continuation in this space next week.
INTERVIEWER
Are these hours during the actual process of writing pleasurable?
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Very.
INTERVIEWER
Could you say something of this process? When do you work? Do you keep to a strict schedule?
HEMINGWAY
When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.
INTERVIEWER
Can you dismiss from your mind whatever project you’re on when you’re away from the typewriter?
HEMINGWAY
Of course. But it takes discipline to do it and this discipline is acquired. It has to be. (more…)
By Steven Pressfield | Published: July 11, 2011
Of all the excellent non-fiction accounts written by participants in America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the most underappreciated is Brandon Friedman’s The War I Always Wanted. That’s a great title, isn’t it? I suspect that was part of the problem. Mr. Friedman, an infantry lieutenant in the 101st Airborne, takes a point of view that is decidedly non-hero-centric, if there is such a word. His account is war as he actually found it and not as he had secretly always wished it would be.
I’m a big fan of The War I Always Wanted. I’d love to see the book get its much-deserved day in the sun. Here, toward that end, are four representative passages, picked by the author (who claims, like all really good writers, to be a poor judge of his own best work but has here come up with, I think, some pretty damn good choices.) The titles of each passage are mine, just to give them names:
Landing Zone
At over one hundred miles an hour we flew past craggy rocks and snow-filled canyons. As the pilots hugged the terrain, I pondered how much someone would pay to take this trip as a tourist. In places like this, places free of industrialization, the sky is such a deep blue that it almost blackens. At lower elevations I could see green trees. There were browns and whites and blues and blacks and greens. I got tapped on the shoulder. One of my soldiers held up five fingers and mouthed, “Five minutes!” I took a breath and then made the signal for those around me to lock and load. Then I pulled the charging handle back on my own M4 before allowing it to slam forward, chambering a round.
I stopped thinking about everything There was nothing else in existence but the roar of the helicopter around me. Nikki no longer existed. My family no longer existed. I had no memories. I had no dreams, no plans for the future. It was all gone—as if the helicopter’s vibrations had liquefied my soul, allowing it to evaporate in the rushing wind that brought combat closer with each passing second. My mind became a pure, blank slate, capable of only repeating a single mantra: Go left, keep Taylor by your side, keep moving—no matter what. Go left, keep Taylor by your side, keep moving. . . . (more…)
By Shawn Coyne | Published: July 8, 2011
After a compelling prologue, the next section of the narrative nonfiction proposal that I recommend is an overview. While the prologue is the SHOW—a representation of how the final manuscript will read—the overview is the TELL. This is the section in which the writer explains to the readers of the proposal (an editor, a marketing director, a publicity director and a publisher) why this particular story is:
- a unique addition to the subject arena,
- appealing to a critical mass of targeted readers,
- promotable for multiple media outlets, and
- commercially viable with major upside potential.
Rather than throw out a bunch of rules for the overview, I thought I’d give one a try myself.
First, a little background.
One of the things I love about my choice of career—the one I love most—is the opportunity to dream up books that have not yet been written. I get ideas for books reading the newspaper, sweating on an elliptical machine, in the shower, even while listening to my daughter and youngest son play house. If it’s a good one, I’ll write it down somewhere and let it simmer. I have scraps of paper in a file called “ideas.” If I can’t stop thinking about one in the file, I’ll pull it out and take it to the next level. (more…)
