By Steven Pressfield | Published: August 20, 2010
Okay, Day Three. Momentum is strong and I will hit it hard again today. (If you’re just tuning in, please scroll back to the prior two posts—yesterday and the day before—to see what this is all about.)
Though Resistance is monumental, at least for me, when I get close to the end of a project, there is one happy tailwind (beyond knowing exactly what the beats of the story have to be) and that is that in the climax to anything there’s no time for digression or description or exposition. It’s pedal to the metal all the way. Momentum, momentum, momentum.
A couple of thoughts:
In these posts I sometimes like to come clean about my inner fears and failings. The reason I do this is because I think such confessions are helpful to younger writers, who might fall into the trap of being too hard on themselves or holding themselves to some impossibly high standard, which then becomes a form of Resistance and beats them down unnecessarily. So, just so you know, even a grizzled salt like me screws up all the time and has to learn the same lessons over and over and needs to reach out for help—and does. To wit:
The draft I’m working on now is, I think, about the thirteenth. So a massive amount of work has gone into this thing already—except for the final fifth, which is brand-new. Why? Because I gave the prior draft to my most excellent friend/editor/publisher/agent, Shawn Coyne (who was the original publisher of The War of Art), and he had the gall of offer some great ideas.
I’ve been wrestling this alligator for almost three years, beating my brains out on the question, “What is this thing about? What’s the theme?” After all that time, I still couldn’t articulate it. But Shawn wrote me a long e-mail, with two paragraphs that nailed it exactly—and showed me that I had to change the ending. I had to redo the final fifth.
Flashback: this is the THIRD rethink so far. Two prior reboots were from Page One. What point am I trying to make? That this stuff is hard. I haven’t finished a book yet that didn’t have at least one false start–and that didn’t profit from major input from friends, editors, agents and colleagues. Every time this happens, my ego receives a severe drubbing. Oh no, you mean I can’t do this all by myself? No, Steve, you can’t—and neither could Hemingway or Joyce (well, maybe Joyce) or anybody.
My last novel (2007) was a WWII story called Killing Rommel. I worked on the screenplay version with another good friend, Randall Wallace (Braveheart and the upcoming Secretariat). Before we’d gotten five minutes into discussing how the book had to change to become a movie, Randy hit on a total story screw-up on my part. In the book I killed off the most interesting character before the main action adventure even began. “Code Blue!” Get the paddles! The story got twice as good the second we brought that character back to life.
It’s so easy to get too close to something. We work so hard sometimes that we can’t see what’s right in front of us. That’s why I’m doing the last fifth of this book over—and why it’s all brand-new to me.
And so to work.
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: August 19, 2010
This is Day Two of our week-long, one-post-every-day “Journal of Finishing A Novel.” (See yesterday’s post for Day One.)
I'm shocked ... shocked to think that Bogey and Ingrid are metaphors!
Today’s work will be a lot scarier than yesterday’s because today I’ll really get into the meat of the climax–a long scene that has to work or the whole book fails. My method for dealing with this kind of anxiety is not to think about it at all. I’ll just do it.
Couple of notes:
1) By no means will today’s work be “winging it.” I know exactly what beats have to be hit and in what order. The climax’s shape has been dictated by every scene and sequence that has gone before. That’s why they went before.
The two primary characters—protagonist and antagonist—have been set up by dozens of scenes and moments, so that the reader will know both who they are as characters and what they represent in terms of the book’s theme. The two minor characters who will appear have also been set up by numerous beats throughout the story. I know how they have to clash and what the outcome has to be.
The physical setting for the climax has also been established in the reader’s mind by earlier scenes—both what and where the site is and, more importantly, what it represents thematically.
I’m a big believer that every character and place in a story must not only be “itself,” but must represent an aspect of the theme. So that—in Casablanca, say—Bogey represents something, Ingrid Bergman represents something, the plane to Lisbon represents something. In the climax when Bogey puts Ingrid on the plane but doesn’t get on himself, that act—even without dialogue—says everything thematically that the story wants to say.
All that being said, I can’t do this climactic scene today “by the numbers.” It depends on passion and immediacy. There’s no way to make that happen except the way actors do it—by getting into the moment emotionally and letting it rip. So, though I know what I have to do today, I don’t know how. That’ll come in the moment.
2) I’ve read that Michael Crichton, as he approached the climax of a book, used to get up earlier and earlier in the morning—till he was getting out of bed at two-thirty and driving his wife crazy. He finally just moved out of the house, checked into a hotel (the Kona Village, I believe) to hunker down to a writing blitz till it was over.
I’m the same way, but without the hotel. It’s too hard otherwise. I have to screw my emotions up to a fever pitch because Resistance gets so high. The earlier I start, the better. That’s my style anyway. I’m not a midnight kinda guy.
And so to work. See you tomorrow.
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: August 18, 2010
I’m going to try something different this week. Instead of one full-length post that stays up for seven days, I’m gonna do short, one-a-day “journal entries.” A new one will go up Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, all week. The reason I’m trying this this week is that, in my real writing life, I’m just now plunging in on the last ten or twelve pages of the novel I’ve been working on for the past three years. I’m thinking that a real-time, “under the helmet” look at one writer’s process might be of interest.
Steinbeck's "Journal of a Novel," a fascinating look at a writer's process
To implement this, I’m going to borrow the concept from John Steinbeck’s Journal of a Novel (an early-AM diary he kept while writing East of Eden) and do these short posts as warmups each morning. When I’m ready to work, I’ll stop the post and sign off till tomorrow.
Okay. Here’s what’s going on inside me right now re finishing this book:
Resistance is monumental; I feel it like a massive brick of fear. But I have three things, at least, working in my favor.
1) I know from experience that Resistance always puts on a full-court press when the finish line heaves into view. So I’m ready for it. I’m not surprised. I know that those voices in my head that say, “What if you screw this up … what if you can’t pull off this climax, etc.” are pure Resistance. They are not thoughts, they are “thoughts.”
I dismiss them. They are lies and bullshit.
2) I also know from experience that the alternative to doing my work is a hundred times worse than the pain or fear of doing it. I remember vividly the seven years when I did yield to fear and Resistance—and the hell it was for me and for people I loved. I can hear the whip crack. The fear of not doing it is stronger than the fear of doing it.
It’s kind of like finding yourself a thousand feet below the summit of Everest, with a 26,000-foot sheer drop-off beneath you. There’s no real option. It’s climb or die.
3) I’m a professional who has faced this stuff down a thousand times. I will plunge in and give it my all.
That’s the warmup for today. See you tomorrow.
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: August 11, 2010
Where does Resistance come from? Seth Godin says it arises from the “lizard brain,” i.e. the primitive reptilian stem that knows only fight-or-flight and thus resists all attempts by the organism—you and me—to ascend to higher realms. There’s something to this, I think, but not, in my opinion, the way Seth sees it.
The source of Resistance, to my mind, is the clash between the ego and the Self.
A definition of the ego
What is the ego? The ego as I would define it is that identity-center that runs our lives in the here and now, the material dimension. When we say “I want,” “I need,” “I am,” the “I” we’re talking about is the ego.
(Significantly, when we say “I love,” we’re not talking about the ego.)
The ego runs the show in the real world. It’s the boss. It’s got an enormous stake in remaining the boss.
Now: what is the Self?
An “I” beyond the ego
The Self is a deeper “I,” a greater “I.” The Self, according to Jung, contains infinitely more than the ego. The unconscious (personal and collective) resides here. Dreams come from the Self, as do instinct and intuition. From the Self spring visions, myths, archetypes. The Self abuts the Divine Ground—neshama in Hebrew, the soul.
Rabbi Finley. It's a sobering business, contemplating the yetzer hara.
In the Kabbalistic view of the world, the soul, which is the source of all wisdom and goodness, is constantly seeking to communicate to us—to our consciousness on the physical plane, our ego. The soul is trying to guide us, sustain us, restore us. But there is a force operating against the neshama. This entity, called the yetzer hara by the great Kabbalistic teachers, is a self-contained and self-sustaining intelligence whose sole aim is to block us from accessing the neshama and to block the neshama from communicating to us.
My breakfast with Rabbi Finley
I was having breakfast a few weeks ago with my friend, Rabbi Mordecai Finley of Ohr HaTorah congregation in Los Angeles. I asked him about this very subject. Here’s part of what he said:
“There is a second self inside you–an inner, shadow Self. This self doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t love you. It has its own agenda, and it will kill you. It will kill you like cancer. It will kill you to achieve its agenda, which is to prevent you from actualizing your Self, from becoming who you really are. This shadow self is called, in the Kabbalistic lexicon, the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara, Steve, is what you would call Resistance.”
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: August 4, 2010
We were talking last week about ambition. Judging from the response, the subject struck a chord. Apparently no few of us, if we’re honest, have to admit that, however egotistical or un-PC it may sound, we really do want to excel, to succeed, to make a mark. We want to do something great, and we’re not going to apologize for it.
Achilles didn't have it, but Homer did
So maybe this week we should balance things out and talk about humility.
A scary world out there
The artist and the entrepreneur (and all of us on the soul-level) live in an uncertain world. Our trade is in ideas, but who can say where the next one is coming from—or even if there will be a next one?
There’s a wonderful quote from John Gardner or somebody that, alas, I can’t find. The bad paraphrase goes something like this:
I make my living tapping a source that I cannot name or control, a force that appears and disappears based on factors that are unknown to and unknowable by me and that cannot be managed or manipulated, no matter how hard I try. I am at its mercy.
The author is talking about the Muse, the unconscious, whatever you want to call the mysterious source and wellspring of creativity.
The author’s world is a pretty scary place, if you think about it. To be dependent utterly on something that you can’t see, smell, taste, measure, summon, govern or control. No wonder artists and entrepreneurs act so crazy.
The virtue of humility
What, then, is the proper attitude of mortal man and woman toward this weird and unknowable, uncontrollable source?
Homer (not Simpson) believed it was respect, humility, even devotion. Both the Iliad
“Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Achilles … “
and the Odyssey
“O divine Poesy, goddess, daughter of Zeus … “
begin with invocations of the Muse, as do countless other works by great artists down the centuries.
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