By Steven Pressfield | Published: September 1, 2010
[While the blog takes a short vacation, here's a post from a few months ago that I've always been partial to. See you in two weeks!]
Writers and artists get asked all the time, “How do you decide which book to write, which painting to paint?” The person asking the question usually has a million ideas in her head; she’s struggling to determine which one(s) to pursue. Here’s an answer from my experience.
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: August 25, 2010
[In keeping with last week's "Writer's Journal" and the idea that the Last Push on a project is always the hardest (with the possible exception of the First Push ... or is it the Middle Push?), I thought it might make sense to bring back this earlier post entitled "Sticking Points."
Why there'll always be an England
[Two facts that all artists and entrepreneurs can agree upon is that sticking points inevitably occur--and at thoroughly predictable times in the process. Part of being a professional is being mentally prepared for these rough patches. I did an interview earlier this year with Gen. Hal G. Moore, who knows a little about life-and-death combat, and he made the point that he always prepared himself and his soldiers mentally for all possible Worst Case Scenarios, so that his troopers "could stay in problem-solving mode and not go into panic mode." Herewith some Sticking Points for us non-rifle-toters to be ready for--so we, too, can stay out of panic mode.]
Have you ever hit the wall? I have. Over and over. On any project–I don’t care how dazzlingly it starts out–inevitably the truck runs into a lake of goo.
Here’s what I’ve learned about sticking points.
First, though they feel like defeats, sticking points are actually good signs. A sticking point means we’ve arrived at a threshold. We’re on the brink of moving to a higher level. That’s the good news. The bad news is that when Resistance gets wind of our impending advancement, it races ahead of us and strews our path with Krazy Glue and thumbtacks.
Second, sticking points are real. There’s a reason why we’re stuck and it’s usually that we’re not good enough yet to get over the particular hump that’s facing us. We need to grow. We need to learn. We’re faced with a real problem and we really have to solve it.
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: August 23, 2010
Day Six: this will be a very short post. I’m giving myself the next two days off—and giving you, dear friends, the same. Yesterday I got through the final sticking point in the draft, and now all is right with the world.
I’ll wrap with this one thought:
From age twenty-two till almost thirty, Resistance had me utterly defeated. The form my malady took was that I couldn’t finish anything. I’d get 99% of the way through and then I’d act out, freak out, bail out. I was powerless. Resistance had me absolutely in its grip. Now, three decades later, I am a thoroughgoing pro who can handle crunch time, if not with total aplomb, then at least by muddling through (or as Albert Finney as Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm used to say, “Remember our motto: KBO, Keep Buggering On.”)
In other words, if you’re reading this and you’re struggling with a similar Resistance-derived monster, don’t lose heart. Keep slugging. Dragons can be slain. “KBO!”
Thanks for your patience with this week’s unorthodox posts. Two days off for me, then on to the next draft.
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: August 22, 2010
Day Five of “Journal of Finishing a Novel.” I’m in the “revisit” stage, meaning going back to finish a sequence that I bypassed in the march to THE END. We’re only a few hundred feet below the summit now; the idea of faltering has become unthinkable. Whatever it takes, we’ll do it.
As for this journal, I’m going to try something today that may be so obscure that it doesn’t communicate at all—but I’ll attempt it in the hope that it’ll be helpful to anyone who’s following these posts. What I want to do is share some of my friend/editor/agent Shawn Coyne’s notes. They may not make sense because they refer to characters and narrative that I haven’t even written about in this space and that you, the reader, have no way of knowing about. Nor am I going to say more about them here; I’m superstitious; it’s too early for them to be thrust into daylight. But Shawn’s notes are so good (and so well-shaped for assimilation by the writer, i.e. me) that maybe they’ll be illuminating, even if it’s difficult for the reader to connect all the specific dots.
The big story problem was that the central character, Gent, didn’t change much from one end of the tale to the other. He started out loyal to his commander, General James Salter (this is a war story, set a generation in the future, when mercenary armies do the work that conventional national militaries do today) and he finished up loyal. This is not good storytelling. It doesn’t mine the material or the characters deeply enough. It’s a serious, possibly fatal flaw.
Here are Shawn’s thoughts. Note how they address theme, rather than story specifics.
Gent’s story is that he has lived and relived the mercenary life through time. It’s who he is … how he defines himself. When Salter arrives on the scene, it seems natural and authentic that Gent serve him. This must be the guy I pledge myself to.
What is interesting about the stories we tell ourselves is that we misread them. What I mean by that is that Gent is convinced that his past is his destiny. He’s lived life after life according to that story. But the reality of the stories we tell ourselves is that they are wrong … that is, we interpret them the wrong way.
What’s interesting and startling to me (as happens so often, in writing almost anything) is that this issue of stories-we-tell-ourselves is one that has surfaced powerfully in my personal life as well, but I haven’t connected it emotionally or intellectually to this novel that I’ve been working on. Back to Shawn’s notes:
If you subscribe to the notion that we relive our earth lives again and again until we reach an acceptance of our authentic beings, then Gent is stuck. He’s not supposed to follow the mercenary code … that’s not who he is … he is supposed to reject it and fight against that romantic notion. He is supposed to protect not just his brothers, but an ideal much bigger than himself—the individual’s right to liberty and freedom.
In this book Gent finds his true self [in coming to the realization that he must resist Salter—and actually fight against him.] He knows that once Salter acquires the power that is at his fingertips and that Gent has helped him attain, it will corrupt him. Salter knows this too. Salter wants Gent to stop him. He practically begs him. But that is not who Gent is. Gent is on this earth to project choice.
What Shawn is expressing here (and what any good editor or publisher or agent or colleague would do) is not how the manuscript is shaped in its present form, but how he thinks it ought to be shaped. And he’s absolutely right. He has put into words what I’ve been struggling to articulate to myself since the idea for this story first seized me.
This level of insight is solid gold. It’s indispensable. It takes the story up a notch–and it sends me back to the drawing board.
I hope this post isn’t too obscure. I hope it makes at least a little sense. Anyway that’s enough journaling for today. Back to the salt mines!
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: August 21, 2010
Day Four of “Journal of Finishing a Novel” and we’re done! Yesterday’s work took us all the way to THE END. I think it works. I hope so. But I will not drive myself crazy, chewing it over. Instead I will start today, as soon as I finish writing this post, revisiting and reworking a couple of sticking points in the narrative that I’ve bypassed on the headlong march to the finish.
These go-backs can be particularly scary. In fact I’m more trepidatious about today’s work–and the next few days’–than I was about the actual climax. The alternative to bypassing such sticking points though (i.e., dealing with them in the real-time flow of start-to-finish) is too risky. They can bring the work to a grinding halt. And that must be avoided at all costs.
I’m a believer in bypassing parts of the story that are non-essential but that put up a stubborn fight when you try to lick them. Those pockets of resistance will break our momentum, bog us down and wear out our spirit. If we let enough of them build up, they can wind up defeating us entirely.
When the First Marine Division invaded Iraq seven years ago, its #1 priority was to get to Baghdad–fast. Baghdad for you and me is finishing the book, completing the project. That is Job One, because once we’ve done that, we’ve won the war. If we have to go back and mop up Al Kut and An Nasiriyah later, so be it. At least we’ve got the campaign in hand.
So I’ve got to THE END, which is great. But now I have to pay the piper of passages I’ve skipped over.
The last big pocket of resistance is a long sequence—seven or eight pages—where I originally killed off a major character. Only now I’ve decided to keep him alive till the climax. His death in the originally-bypassed sequence was the Big Bang that gave the sequence its punch. Now that’s gone. I’ve got to come up with something to replace it. I have no idea what that’ll be.
Okay, I can feel this journaling is turning into Resistance and avoidance. That’s enough for today. Let’s get to work and see what we can come up with …
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