By Steven Pressfield | Published: January 11, 2012
My friend Kate tells this story:
A racing yacht elicits powerful emotions
I was visiting my friend Bob Gilbert, who among many other talents was a fabulous boat builder. This was at Harvey Swindall’s boatyard in Ventura [California], where Bob was building a 92-foot yacht based on the plans for the famous ocean racer Bloodhound, which had been built originally in the 1870s at the Fife Boat Works in Fairlie, Scotland. The new Bloodhound’s keel had been laid. The ribs were in place. Bob showed me around, pointing out all the little details of construction, which he, being a master builder, had gone to incredible lengths to get right. I was amazed—and greatly honored to be allowed in on such a monumental venture.
We finished; it was late and getting dark. As we were walking out, Bob pulled up to say good night. I said, “Aren’t you going home, Bob?”
Bob said he was staying with the boat. He pointed to an Airstream trailer that he had parked in the yard. He’d been sleeping beside the new Bloodhound for the past week and was going to keep on till she was finished and in the water. I asked, “Why?” Bob got this very sober look on his face. “Beware the saboteur,” he said.
Malicious arson, Bob went on to tell Kate, is a not uncommon phenomenon in boatyards. People get jealous. They see a colleague building something great; they’ll sneak in at night and put that baby to the torch. (more…)
By Steven Pressfield | Published: January 4, 2012
Writers of fiction learn early that they can write characters who are smarter than they are.
Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
How can that be? It doesn’t seem possible.
The answer lies in the Mystery.
The place that we write from (or paint from or compose from or innovate from) is far deeper than our petty personal ego. That place is beyond intellect. It’s deeper than rational thought.
It’s instinct.
It’s intuition.
It’s imagination.
If you and I cast Meryl Streep as Queen Boudica in our next Hollywood blockbuster, will we have any doubt that she can pull it off (even though she has never heard of, and knows nothing about, Queen Boudica)?
Ms. Streep will go wherever it is that she goes, read whatever books she needs to read, and she’ll come back with Queen Boudica. She will have become Queen Boudica.
You and I can do it too. We can work over our heads. Not only can we, but we must.
I’ve always wanted to ask Frank Gehry what he was thinking when he first came up with the design for the Guggenheim Bilbao. A part of him must have thought, “Frank, this is nuts. Those wavy walls … the design committee will throw you out on your butt!”
It’s good juju to work over your head. The Muse likes it. When we have the courage to work from deep places, the goddess gets her chance to shine. How bored must she get, inspiring architects with ordinary, plumb-and-level walls? What fun for her to nudge Frank Gehry’s pencil and create these whacky, dipsy-doodle walls that nobody ever saw before but that look absolutely fantastic!
(more…)
By Steven Pressfield | Published: December 28, 2011
Everybody loves the vertical game. We all thrill to the deep ball, the long completion, the 55-yard bomb that breaks the game open. (Yes, I’ve been watching a lot of football over the Holidays.)
Jerry Rice. A short completion + a long run-after-catch = a long completion.
The problem is that, a lot of the time, the guys we’re playing against are as good or better than we are. Or they’re lucky, or they’re having a great day, or they’ve just studied our tendencies and know how to counter them. The defense won’t let us throw the deep ball. We’re dying to. We’re on fire to. But the bastards just won’t let us.
That’s when we’re not unwise to rein in our expectations, give up on what we wish we could get and settle for what we can get.
In writing terms (and I know this is true for dance, for painting, for film-making and on and on), there are days—and sometimes weeks—when Resistance is just too strong. For me, there are parts of a book that feel like knots in a plank of wood. They’re bears. They refuse to yield. I can surround them like a besieging army ringing a city—and I still can’t find a weak spot.
On those days, you have to take what the defense will give you.
There’s no shame in being realistic. On the football field, we close that part of the playbook that contains the deep routes and the 55-yard bombs. We turn to that section that has the short slants and the quick passes into the flat.
Remember, no defense can cover everything. If they’re shutting down our vertical game, it means they’re leaving some slack close to the line of scrimmage. Let’s take it.
The important thing is to keep advancing the ball and keep moving the chains. If we can get enough completions by dinking and dunking three yards and four yards, one of those may break out into the secondary; maybe another will blast through all the way.
The other thing I’ve found about those Heavy Resistance days is that, if you can hang in long enough, sometimes the defense will crack. Sometimes late in the fourth quarter, the opponents’ legs will give out. Suddenly you can go long. All at once the deep ball works. (more…)
