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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Golf Is My Game
by Robert Tyre (Bobby) Jones
In my opinion, the best golf book ever written. Kind of a hodge-podge actually, with tips and lessons mixed in with autobiography—the story of the Grand Slam, and even a chapter titled “The Stymie—Let’s Have It Back!” Like so many memoirs by great men and women who aren’t professional writers, it rings true as gold, page after page. If Bobby wants the stymie back, I’m all for it.
Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book
by Penick, Harvey
If authenticity is a virtue, this is the supreme manifestation of it. Harvey Penick and John Wooden both radiate that quality of true-blue excellence and generosity, which explains why both have produced so many champions and are both so revered by all who knew them. Simply sensational.
Cosmic Laws of Golf, The
by Printer Bowler
Full disclosure: young Printer is a dear friend. This is a slender volume that goes deep, from an officer during the Vietnam War who has lived a full and profoundly observed life and distilled there from many lessons that go beyond the front nine or the back. It’ll help your golf game, too.
Golf in the Kingdom
by Murphy, Michael
Best book ever on golf and spirituality. Packed with wit and inventiveness, not at all full of itself, Kingdom is a yarn you can read over and over. Shivas Irons is probably the greatest fictional golf creation, short of Carl from Caddyshack. And Michael Murphy is erudite. Do you know the scene in Plato’s Symposium, when Alcibiades arrives, drunk, at the dinner party, and enters to make a speech in praise of Socrates? Well, Murphy knocks this off to brilliant effect with a speech in praise of Shivas—and never even winks at his readers.
Secret of Hogan’s Swing, The
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Golfing cognoscenti remember the late John Schlee’s student-mentor relationship with Ben Hogan that, alas, ended with both their deaths. Were Hogan’s final secrets lost? No, because Schlee passed them on to celebrated San Diego teaching pro Tom Bertrand. Here, working with Printer Bowler (author of the excellent Cosmic Laws of Golf), Bertrand delivers to us the master’s last secrets on pronation/supination, the left hip, the right knee, and much more—plus fascinating psychological nuggets on competition and the keys to victory. Hogan’s concept of “the moving wall” alone is worth the price of the book. A must-read for Hogan fans and golfing aficionados of all kinds.
