Writing Wednesdays

Paul’s All Is Lost Moment

By Steven Pressfield
Published: February 8, 2012

My friend Paul is writing a pilot. He’s never done a piece of writing this serious before. The work is totally on spec.

Paul's All Is Lost Moment was a lot like Rocky's

Paul has a full-time business and has to do his writing at odd hours. A couple of weeks ago he had a crisis that made him almost suicidal. When I describe it to you, you’ll say, “Man, have I been there!”

A script for a TV pilot is about fifty-five pages long. Paul was on Page 52. He went home after work, sat down at his laptop and opened up the script to (blank) page 53. But first he decided, just for fun, to skim over pages 1 to 52.

By the time he was done, he was in despair. I saw him the next morning.

“What a blistering, unconscionable piece of crap! Who am I kidding giving birth to this abortion, or even deluding myself that I am, or might someday become, a writer? This worthless, steaming turd that I’ve been busting my ass over for … “

Paul was distraught. Inconsolable. I had to walk him home just to make sure he didn’t do something desperate.

Seventy-two hours later, I saw Paul again.

“I’m on page 62,” he said. His aspect and demeanor had totally changed. He was a new man. “I finished the f*@ker,” he said.

“And did the pages miraculously get better when you looked at them again?”

“Hey, I know I’m an idiot … “

We started talking about the scene in the first Rocky, where Sylvester Stallone, on the night before the big fight, gets up out of bed and goes down, alone, to the arena. He sees the giant billboards with pictures of the champ, Apollo Creed—and one huge placard with his own image. His face falls. His shoulders slump. The promoter is the only person in the auditorium. “What are you doing here, Rocky? Go home and get some sleep.”
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