Writing Wednesdays
The Turning Pro Moment
By Steven Pressfield | Published: July 18, 2012
Since the publication of Turning Pro a month ago, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about certain concepts in the book. One that keeps sticking in my head—and demanding deeper inspection—is the moment of turning pro.
One of the greatest All Is Lost moments comes from "Big Night"
I’m going to dedicate the next few weeks on Writing Wednesdays to further thoughts on this subject. I want to talk about its relationship to the All Is Lost moment, the two components of the All Is Lost moment (the second one of which I’m calling in my head the “breakthrough moment”)—and I want to talk about the “B” story and how that fits into the Turning Pro moment.
Does this sound arcane enough? Bear with me. It’s worth thinking about.
Let’s start with the All Is Lost moment. I’m indebted to Jen Grisanti, the author of Storyline and a well-known Hollywood script consultant, for laying out this concept, analyzing it and dissecting it. If you haven’t read Storyline, I highly recommend it.
Okay, what is the All is Lost moment? In a movie, it usually comes at the end of the second act. It’s the lowest point for the hero. In the All Is Lost moment, the hero is as far away from his goal as possible. (I’m interested in this, by the way, not so much for its utility in constructing a story or a screenplay as for its importance in real life. And particularly its part in the moment that makes us turn from amateurs into pros.)
In Rocky, the All Is Lost moment is when Rocky goes down to the arena, alone, the night before the big fight and realizes that he has no chance to beat the champ, Apollo Creed. In The Hangover, the All Is Lost moment is when the guys get “Doug” back—only to find that it’s the wrong Doug. In Big Night, it’s the moment after Primo and Secondo have their big fistfight on the beach and stagger off in different directions, knowing that their restaurant has just had its last night.
Almost every Turning Pro moment is preceded by an All Is Lost moment. The “breakthrough moment,” which follows, is the decision to turn pro.
One of the greatest Turning Pro moments comes from Rosanne Cash's "Composed"
What exactly happens in an All Is Lost moment, both in movies and in real life?
What happens is the hero—i.e., you and me—comes face to face with a lie he has told himself, a lie upon which he has based his entire life (or, in a movie, the sum of the events so far in the film.)
The lie is a self-delusion. It’s an act of denial, a cherished belief about ourselves or our prospects. When events compel us at last to see this self-delusion, our reaction is “All is lost!” We believe that we cannot live without this self-delusion. There is no way out. We’re finished.
In Rocky, the self-delusion was that Rocky had a chance to beat the champ. In The Hangover, the guys’ delusion was that they could find Doug simply by re-living the prior evening. In Big Night, the brothers’ delusion was that they could make their restaurant succeed on its own terms. In the All Is Lost moment, each one of these beliefs is shattered, leaving the protagonists defeated, bereft and in despair.
Twelve-step programs deal with All Is Lost moments all the time. The alcoholic-in-denial believes he is not a drunk. He can handle his drinking, he believes; it’s no problem. That’s the self-delusion. That’s the instance of denial.
Suddenly something happens. In Turning Pro, there’s a chapter called Miss X in Bakersfield. It’s the true story of a friend of mine who woke up one morning in a motel in Bakersfield, in the same clothes she had been wearing the night before, with an empty quart of Jim Beam on the nightstand. When she looked in the mirror (literally, in the motel bathroom) she had to admit to herself that she was an alcoholic. That’s what she’d been denying for years. That was her All Is Lost moment.
The Turning Pro moment is a specific instance of the All Is Lost moment. In the Turning Pro/All Is Lost moment (I should say the All Is Lost moment that precedes the Turning Pro moment), the truth we come face to face with is that we have been avoiding our true calling for our entire lives.
We have been beaten by Resistance. We have failed as the stewards of our unique gifts. We have been amateurs, dilettantes, dabblers.
That’s the All Is Lost moment that precedes the Turning Pro moment.
What is the Turning Pro moment? It’s the decision that we will stop squandering our gifts. We will get serious about the talents we were given. We will stop living our lives as amateurs, as dabblers and as dilettantes.
For a classic example of a Turning Pro moment, read this excerpt from Rosanne Cash’s wonderful memoir, Composed. This is also, with Rose’s permission, a chapter in Turning Pro. It deals in unsparing detail with both Rose’s All Is Lost moment—“Oh my God, I am a dilettante!”—and her breakthrough moment, her Turning Pro moment: “Well, this shit is gonna stop right now! I am going to become serious about my talent and my obligation to use it.” (I’m paraphrasing!)
Next week: What are the components of the All Is Lost moment?
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I read Turning Pro last month for my birthday and resolved that I would turn pro and stop messing around-resistance disagreed and promptly started smacking me around especially hard.
No matter how much I told myself that I needed to turn it around, I found myself wasting my time instead of writing.
So I was gifted with an All is Lost moment earlier today.
The computer crashed and the backup failed. A part of me wanted to commit Hara-Kiri over it, but then again, if I don’t just get back to work rebuilding what is lost it won’t ever get done…and it needs to get done.
Thank you for your direction and inspiration.
David, I’m so sorry to learn that your computer crashed. My heart goes out to you. Wishing you all the best.
Brilliant post and just the smack in the head I needed. If I’m honest, I’m at the All Is Lost moment now. I know I’m a writer. I’ve just put too many doubts and obstacles in my own way to realise that.
Asking a friend to look over my work recently produced a mixed response from her. She liked bits but felt I just wasn’t good enough, or maybe I should write for children according to her. It felt like all the times my father, well meaningly, told me I’d never write a ‘great’ novel. It was the first draft though. That’s never going to be the best. I really should have known better.
So I’m getting on with this now. All is ‘not’ lost. Thank you for your words.
I never show my work to anybody until it’s done and I need an editor. Have you ever read Brenda Ueland’s book, “If You Want to Write”? I think you’d really like it.
Brenda Ueland’s book is one of my all-time favorite writing books. Love it!
Thanks… I needed that.
I just had my all is lost moment. Or I’m still battling through it. I’m still reeling under the sense that a delusion was shattered. Trying to figure out from the shards what the delusion was and what I’m looking at in the mirror now.
Wishing you a wonderful journey as you search.
We watched an episode of The West Wing last night with this very theme. The episode from Season 2 called “Noel” written by Aaron Sorkin is a build up to this moment of coming to terms with this All is Lost moment.
Question: How do we avoid falsely creating an All is Lost moment for ourselves? Reading this I’m thinking, “What can I do to make myself have such a moment?” But I’m guessing that is exactly the wrong kind of thinking to make it happen. . .
The “moment” often grabs us from behind and shakes the living daylights out of us, then we look around to see what has caused it. From there, we sometimes do the make it or break it action.
Steven,
I love the way you explore concepts. I am giving tremendous gratitude that my message about the “all is lost” is part of what inspired this exploration.
I love your interpretation of it and how you mention the moment both in movies and in life. You speak my language and the language of the masses. This is why you connect so much with your audience.
Thank you for sharing your gift.
Light,
Jen
Jen, what a beautiful and gracious reply to Steven’s post today. What are you writing these days?
Jen, I’m glad you saw this. Next Wednesday I take a deeper shot at interpreting the All Is Lost moment. Lemme know if you agree, okay?
A comment of mine on the previous ”All is lost moment” article was mostly humorist, but on this one I’ll keep a serious profile.
The “All is lost moment”, as described above, is the Big One, the moment that the realization of disaster is so great that you just have to act. The vibes of this earthquake are so big,dangerous,lethal that you just prefer to try something -anything- than get buried under the ruins of your life.
So this is the Big One.
And there are always smaller moments of this situation, also dangerous if you let them overcome you.
In unusual situations the only thing we can make is to go on doing the usual things and beat Resistance (talking about the creative process).
The above (not about the creative process) was mentioned also somewhere in the “Gates of Fire”, where the Greek army in general (not only the Spartans) is doing his stuff and routines when the devastating gigantic enemy of the Persian Empire approaches…
(I don’t remember right now the exact scene, it was something like that).
I come here often. I love to read what Steven writes, and I love to read the posts from others. Mostly because I am lost, and have been a spectacular failure. In some ways it is my diversions,as Pascal might say. I have turned aside from myself and my destiny to find distraction in oocupation, amusements, etc. “The whole clamity of man comes from one single thing, that he cannot keep quiet in a room.” (Pascal)
Turning Pro reminded me of a passage I read long ago. In the book “The Intellectual Life” by A. G. Sertillanges (a French Dominican), he talks about vocation as a state of mind. (Indeed the entire book is Turning Pro written in 1924 Catholic intellecual style. It is very good and remarkably I have forgotten about it.) “It (this state of mind) implies a serious resolution. The life of study is austere and imposes grave obligation. It pays, it pays richly; but it exacts an initial outlay that few are capable of. The athletes of the mind, like those of the playing field, must be prepared for privations, long training, a sometimes superhuman tenacity. We must give ourselves from the heart if truth is to give itself to us. Truth serves only its slaves.”
So far, for my whole life I have sought freedom only to find bondage. Now I am seeking courage to pursue submission. As Steven would say, The muse honors working stiffs.
To ge something without paying is the universal desire; but it is the desire of a cowardly heart and weak mind. This is my confession. I have been cowardly and weak. Resistance has beaten me for 41 years. I am no longer looking for a successful year, or decade or life. But to simply wage war with all I have for today.
Wishing you courage and strength to find your mountain top.
James, that’s great about “vocation as a state of mind.” I couldna said it better! (As opposed to “avocation,” which would be the amateur state of mind.)
I love your blog, Steven. I mix your writings with those of Twyla Tharp, and Rumi, and Pema Chodrön who each talk about the spiritual journey in their own way.
I don’t know if I’d say I had a ‘turning point’ moment, more like a turning point decade, as I realized I was going to have to shed more and more of my emotional and financial baggage in order to create space for the ‘new me’.
I find with every creative project I undertake I want to go deeper into the material, achieve better results, and with that, I find there are often those challenging moments where I have to celebrate my limitations, and at times, recoil and accept what I can do today.
I think the buddhists would call this ‘maitri’ — or compassion, or as Pema would say, ‘unconditional friendship and acceptance of oneself’. Learning to love the person I am right now enables me to become, little by little, the person I want to be tomorrow.
After numerous smacks on the head, sleeping in my car and then finally dusting myself, but still went back to working in the corporate world, this time somehow more successful, the finale came when my boss refused vacation time for me to attend a seminar. I handed in my resignation and have been self employed since then (two and a half years now).
The process felt like the movie Evan Almighty. Every time I strayed from what was buried deep within me, I got smacked hard.
Yes I have had to give up my Lexus, my consumerism lifestyle and all that, but I am now more happy and grateful and appreciative of life than ever before!! I still have resistance to write on a regular basis, but I am Turning Pro.
Thank you Steven