That’s right.  I feel better, thanks for asking.  Turns out I had a “touch” of the stomach flu.  That “touch” had the wallop of a backhanded bitch slap if you ask me, but I’m better now…and back to my bad eating habits.  Yay!

Despite being down for the count so many days in a row, I still had a pretty productive week as far as writing goes.  We’ve just ended the poetry section of my creative writing class, and so I revised everything I had produced so far for my portfolio and was pretty pleased with some of the pieces.  A huge deal considering my limited experience with poetry.

Now that we’re done with poetry, we’re finally wading into fiction, familiar territory.  Cheers went up in the class, I tell you.  But when I say we’re wading, it’s serious baby steps.

Our first assignment was to select a handful of pictures from a stack the professor brought in, just anything we liked.  Then we had to write a short story outline from it.

My pictures were a flock of parrots, an aerial shot of a stone ring, a goatherder holding a baby goat (with an oddly long tail), a group of men playing dominoes, and a man resting in the foreground while a group of people apparently dance the conga in the background.  Hmm.  Wish I knew that was going to be the assignment before I picked out my pictures.  But I made it work. <g>

Next week’s assignment is to write the first page of our story.  So as you can see, we are taking tiny little baby steps.  At first I was a little bit put out.  One page?  One lousy page?  I wanna write stories!  But this process is making me take a closer look at how I put together stories.

The professor brought out the old graph that looks like a mountain, with the inciting incidents, climax, et cetera.  And I just thought, oh, man, I don’t put my stories together like that.  I just don’t.  But as we’re going along, I’m seeing the value of picking out tiny little elements and just writing that and nothing else.  I’m enjoying this process of story construction via microscope.  We’ll see what happens with my goatherder and parrot flock.

Speaking of the writing process, I discovered the other day that the very esteemed Steven Pressfield has started doing a series of blog posts on his blog entitled “Writing Wednesdays.” Wonderful, wonderful stuff.  Check it out!

Also, heads up!  NaNoWriMo starts this Sunday!  That’s right, folks.  Mark your calendars…then clear them.  Turn off your phones, ignore your email, and get ready to write.  I’ll be up in the wee hours of the night along with the thousands of other foolhardy fools across the globe racking up the word counts.  This is the year I reach 50,000 words!

Steven Pressfield is one of a handful of authors who managed to have 4th century BC historical fiction published. His research is fantastic – the man knows his stuff, no doubt about it.

So I’ve read The Afghan campaign. That’s Alexander the Great’s campaign in that region of the world, from the point of view of a cavalry soldier. Full of information, fast-paced at times, but also dark and gory. I enjoyed it, but you put it down with the yearning to take a long hot shower. Oh, and I believe Pressfield tries a little too hard to weave parallels between Alexander’s troubles in Afghanistan and today’s difficulties in that region of the world.

Now it’s Tides of War, “A novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War”, which he wrote back in 2000. Now Pressfield is just showing off his knowledge of daily life and military matters. I’m sure he could only put a fraction of his accumulated knowledge into the book, but even that is overwhelming. Long lists of ship’s names, discussions of Athenian law, thousands of little details thrown in and hundreds of names of semi-famous characters from the old history books. It’s all fascinating, but I never acquired a strong taste for that kind of literature. But I learn something on every page, so I keep reading.

Pressfield’s Web site is quite interesting. Worth exploring, even if it looks like they stopped updating it last year.

The other day I was asked why I write. Good question. Why do I write?

You know why I write? Because I feel like I have to. It’s like I need to and it makes me feel good.

But that isn’t to say that it doesn’t torture me as well. How painful I find it to be in the state of feeling the need to create. Mainly I think this is because of the mental blocks that stop the creation from happening. We all know constipation can hurt bad. Creation constipation kills too.

Actually, in an amazing 19 minute video by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, Gilbert says that the creative process has been, literally, killing the greatest artists for the last couple of hundreds of years.

Her theory, based on other’s theories as well, is that today we’re all about individuality. What we create is ours and came directly from us. So when we succeed, it’s euphoric and when we fail, it kills us. More than that, it’s hard to even put the pen to the paper – or the fingers to the keyboard – because so freakin’ much is riding on every word that it freezes you with fear.

On the other hand, it used to be believed – I think she said in Ancient Rome and Greece – that there was a muse, a genius or just some ghost-type-thing that was with the artist, helping them along. Or not. Either way, then, when there was success, it couldn’t get too much to your head because you knew you weren’t solely reliable for the results and if a creation failed, also, it wouldn’t necessarily totally break you.

There is a book I recently read which pretty much talks about the same idea. The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield, like this video, is highly, highly recommended.

It kills me – don’t worry, not really – how much time I “waste” because I just can’t get myself to sit down and work. The blocks feel so real. But when I hear about these ideas, it helps me understand where my fears of trying are coming from and it also helps me believe that, over time, I’ll be able to feel more at peace with just trying.

What Gilbert and Pressfield say is that the only thing we have to do is our part. Our part is to sit down and write. The muse’s part (or whatever you want to call it, I might call it some type of Godliness) is to support us and help our work become the best it can be.

P.S. Please don’t be fooled. This piece itself took me days to get around to writing because of my blocks.

Saw the Coen Brothers’ latest this weekend: A Serious Man. While I won’t give the plotline away, I will say that the filmmakers did not disappoint me with a story and tone that echoed many of their previous movies while also delivering a fair bit of humor.  From Blood Simple to No Country for Old Men, I always marvel at their ability to weave together humor, violence; love, desire; innocence, evil; charity, greed; and of course, luck and unluck, or at least the perception of it. All this demonstrated through characters and environments that seem to be somewhat devoid of empathy.

Coincidentally, before the movie, I was compelled to pop into the nearby Barnes & Noble and replace my copy of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. This is one of those books that you give friends to read all the time and then find that you want to refer to it while it’s out on loan….so you buy it again. Therefore, I’m probably on at least my eighth copy of the book. (My first copy was a birthday gift about 4 years ago. )

The basic premise of this book is that Resistance is a creative person’s tireless and impersonal nemesis, and that you basically have to resign yourself to the battle against it. In a nutshell, that you will encounter the worst and most heartbreaking obstacles around that which you are most called to do. It defines the different forms that Resistance takes and basically recommends that an artist hunker down and assume the mentality of a professional soldier in an endless battle.

As cold as this approach may seem, it is somehow more comforting to me than anything I learned in twelve years of Catholic school. In one Coen Bros. movie, a character sobs miserably in a scene, as he feels cursed by his genius. It seems the best application for his talents that can help him sustain a living is illegal, and he has brought shame on himself and his family by being caught for excelling in his field. He says, why has God cursed me like this? He hasn’t given me sh*t. His companion comforts him by telling him God doesn’t hate him, and it’s nothing personal, and everything will be OK. (I’m paraphrasing slightly and leaving out detail so I don’t spoil anything for anyone who hasn’t seen this particular film yet…please forgive my inaccuracy).

It’s always nice to step back and know that a misfortune is not personal – I remember loving this about the beautiful people of New York City – their refreshing bluntness – truth, not malice;  words undecorated for clarity. You could be told one moment that your opinion is sh*t and five minutes later be having a drink with your “adversary” and asking about each others’ families.

Energy spent on anger towards a disadvantageous situation: zero. Freedom freed up to create: endless.  I wouldn’t take this to mean that the battle is easy, but at least you can move past setbacks with more grace than pain, hopefully.

I watch the Coens’ movie endings noting that innocents do perish in the fatalistic mayhem, but there are also characters who, by maintaining some measure of grace (though perhaps twisted), they are left standing when the credits roll. We see them aware that they have survived, but still staring darkness in the face. Perhaps the only major change is that they recognize that darkness more readily than they did at the start of the story. That, and the battle is not necessarily over.

And at least we, the audience, get some laughs in the process.

"Ice Tea" by ~DevilizeR - deviantART.com

I have read at least two dozen books on writing in my life, and own quite a few I haven’t yet read.  So far, I have found three to be well worth their salt:  The War of Art:  Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield (which I’ve read at least five times now — this is one I won’t lend out, but have purchased for friends and family); On Writing by Stephen King (which I’ve read at least three times and is currently on loan to my friend’s 13-year-old daughter, a budding author who cranks out word counts like a pro); and an old favorite, Zen in the Art of Writing:  Releasing the Creative Genius Within You by Ray Bradbury.

When I was in 11th grade, Ray Bradbury was a featured keynote speaker at a local university.  My English teacher, Mr. Brown, was kind enough to take me with him to hear Mr. Bradbury speak.  Mr. Bradbury was a big, imposing guy, with thick white hair, thick black glasses, and a booming voice.  Listening to him speak was like riding the People Mover at Disneyland through his life, watching him unfold his memories before our very eyes about dinosaurs, Ireland, catching the great white whale.  It was fascinating and exciting and exhilarating.  Mr. Brown even lent me money to purchase an audio tape of the event, which I still have to this day.

(Mr. Brown rocked as an English teacher…and it has become more apparent to me as I’ve gotten older just how awesome he really was in his understated way.)

I can listen to this tape and close my eyes and just lose myself in it.  The way Ray Bradbury speaks is the way Ray Bradbury writes and, I strongly suspect, lives his life.  There’s only one word to describe it:  love.  Everything he talks about, everything he writes about has come about from something he has fallen in love with.  Not a bad way to approach things in my humble opinion.

I was poking through one of our bookcases a few weeks ago, looking for “something good to read,” and I rediscovered my copy of Zen.  I bought Zen for my first creative writing class at a community college when I was 18.  It was inspiring then, especially fresh from the experience of having heard the same words come from the author’s lips.  But reading it again….

It’s amazing how certain things get better as you get older.  I read most of the book through a film of tears.  I’m convinced that if scientists could harness the fierceness of Ray Bradbury’s love and enthusiasm for life, wars would cease, the energy crisis would be over once and for all, and space travel would become an everyday affair in craft powered by memories.  The language, the love, the hot-damn metaphors, the oomph with which he wrote the essays in this book and his other amazing stories…how could I not be inspired?

Before I even finished reading it, I sat down and wrote a sweet little short story.  Just like that.  One sitting.  Not surprisingly, it was a story about the magic of memories and family and life.  I was pleasantly surprised.  It had been ages since I wrote a story like that.  And it started out with the simple idea of what makes sun tea taste so damn good.

When I was younger, this is how I wrote.  Catch an idea in a jar, pour it out on the page, stir it up with a pen, and see what kind of pictures came out.  As I’ve matured as a writer, my approach has become much more methodical.  There’s still enthusiastic leaping across the wilds of metaphors, catching ideas, bits of dialogue, winged what-ifs in my little specimen jar.  But once I get them home, my tendency is to remove it with tweezers, pin it to a board, and preserve it for future dissection.

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not necessarily a bad approach.  It’s yielded a lot of strong stories for me.  But it’s definitely a more technical approach.  I like to know the shape of a story.  I like to outline it.  I like to make sure that I completely mine an idea for everything it’s worth before I even start the actual writing, often resulting in very long stories.  And although I enjoy the process, at times I end up making it become more work than it needs to be…especially when it comes to editing before I’ve even set Word One on the page.  Who knows what bits of goodness have been lost because I tossed something aside for fear that it wasn’t good enough, instead of pursuing it to the end to find out for certain.  Kind of akin to not trying a new food because you’re afraid you won’t like it.

Even though this is the way I write — and it works for me — every once in a while, a story finds me, uses me, escapes from me, and I’m running hot on its heels excited to find out where we’ll end up.  I love, love, love these stories.  They’re the most fun to write.  You look up surprised at the time, surprised that you’ve missed a meal (something I never do normally <g>), surprised that you’ve arrived safely home after a day trip to the Rings of Saturn.

But how do you get to see Saturn on a regular basis?  Easy.  Ask Ray Bradbury.  Work.  Relaxation.  Don’t think.

This is what Ray Bradbury writes:  “…[write] one short story a week, Fifty-two stories a year, for five years…Quantity gives experience.  From experience alone can quality come…Work then, hard work, prepares the way for the first stages of relaxation, when one begins to approach what Orwell might call Not Think! As in learning to typewrite, a day comes when the single letters a-s-d-f and j-k-l-; give way to a flow of words.”

This is obviously truncated, but the important parts are there.  And so I have decided to take Mr. Bradbury’s sage advice and write a story each week.  I still have my carefully constructed story projects I’m working on, but once a week, I have committed to sitting down with an idea and letting it take the reins and just go along for the ride.

Last week, I drowsed beneath a kitchen table in Kauai listening to folks share sun tea and magic.  This week I’m spying on a witch who has sewn a little stuffed animal for her precious baby, a little guardian, if you will.  And next week, I’m going to visit this guy who has this recurring problem of Jesus…well, I’ll tell you next week. <g>  I’ve got dozens more stories jostling for a good place in line.  I have to write a short story a week just to be fair to everyone.

Thank you, Mr. Brown, for driving me to see Ray Bradbury.

And thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for driving me to write, and for reminding me of why I do this strange thing.  For love.

In my advice to writers, there are two books I always recommend. One is On Writing by Stephen King, the other is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Immediately after I first read the latter, I plopped down and wrote my first novel, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, and I re-read it regularly (easy to do, as it’s a short book).

Pressfield’s deal is getting us to overcome the resistances within ourselves and just getting down to the friggin’ work. His book is a self-help book that’s really helpful and not full of homilies and crap like “You are the captain of your own ship.”

(Which a therapist once told me in what was, inevitably, our one and only session because I damn near laughed in her face).

I recently became aware of Pressfield’s blog for writers, Writing Wednesdays, and it should be required reading for anyone wanting to make it in the arts.

Here’s one gem I found there:

The Muse, if she’ll forgive me, is kind of like a mailman. She makes her rounds every day, cruising past our offices and studios and peeking in the window. Are we there at our easels? The Muse likes that. She likes to see us taking care of business. And if we’re there with our hearts breaking or tears streaming down our cheeks, all the better. The Muse says to herself, “This poor bastard is true to me; I’m gonna give him something in return for his loyalty.”

And into our heads pops the solution to Act Two, the bridge to that song we couldn’t lick, the breakthrough concept for our new philanthropic venture.

The lesson is, if you’re not at the place you do the work, at least trying to do the work, the work won’t happen. And if you are there, and getting down to business, you will discover wondrous things, gifts from the Muse, that will surprise you and enrich both you and the work itself.

But you’ve gotta be working for it to work.

So here is the real story .

I’ve been taking the advice of Chris Brogan in his great book Trust Agents and stepping out of the safety of “Lurker-ville “

What this means is that I am blogging more myself, and I’m  starting to comment on blogs I enjoy, telling the authors what I like, and how what they write impacts my life.

I did this on Steven Pressfield’s blog, and I wrote about his book on mine.

So, the internet being what it is, you can go on Technorati, plug in your name, and see what’s being said about you out in Ether Land.

Steve Pressfield’s publicist does this for him and in the course of her research she found my blog, read my comments, contacted me, and that’s how the interview came to be.

Pressfield  is very smart. He knows what it means  be a good citizen in this new social media neighborhood.  He’s generous and web savvy.  He understands that it’s not just about him and his book and his sales, but more about putting out great content and helping people.  Lending them your tools. Helping out the little guy.

I am a “little guy”.  My blog has a very small readership at this point, so his motivation for answering my questions and letting me post them on my blog clearly isn’t sales.  Or if it IS sales, he is willing to grow his sales slowly, one book at a time, one happy customer at a time—one happy customer who will hopefully  “sneeze” about his book to all her friends, and spread the word around.

Now I ask you,  how smart is that?

Today I got an email from Steven Pressfield’s publicist.

Seems I’ve been foisting The War of Art on all my friends so relentlessly and with such vigor and over-the-top-ness, that news of all this foisting has finally reached Steven’s “people,” and they wrote, begging, in the name of all my friends, and all that’s decent, to please, please please, cease and desist!

I said I would, but only on one condition: that Steven answer 3 of my questions and that I be allowed to post those questions, and his answers, on my blog.  Oh yeah, and how about throwing in a few signed copies of The War of Art as give-aways to my loyal readers?

His publicist agreed!  Now I just have to think up some juicy, insightful, deep, piercing, (yet light and funny) questions for Steven (Resistance Warrior) Pressfield.

If you’ve read the book, you can help.  Is there anything you want to know, about Steve?  About resistance?  About the muse?  About turning Pro?  About failure?

If you haven’t read The War of Art, why the hell not??

(the real story tomorrow)

Much debate goes on about what kills dreams these days, and of course there are many things.  But, how many of these things can be directly attributed to the person themselves?  What I mean is, instead of blaming the world, money, people, competition and everything outside of us, why not look within us first.

I just finished this book, The War of Art, Break Through The Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. It was given to me at a Dan Kennedy workshop called the 7 Figure Academy.  The sole focus of this workshop was on the 7 ways to take your 6 figure business to 7 figures.  It was fascinating to me because a lot of this stuff I already knew and was using to help my clients.  Yet, it was assembled and explained to me in a way that I really got it on a whole other level too.

There was a lot of discussion and time spent on overcoming resistance.  Let’s face it, in order to be a successful entrepreneur and business owner, we have a lot of obstacles we need to face and overcome.  The biggest one I think is that huge internal one, you know what I’m talking about, those little voices inside of you that try to stop you from being successful. The ones that say you’re not good enough, or you don’t deserve this, or you’re going to fail, or instilling huge fear in you so much so that it freezes you right in your tracks and stops you from getting what you want and being successful.  These same voices that unfortunately have taken some great people from us like Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi and others… they suffered from their inner demons and in the end couldn’t over come them. In fact, Oprah just had Whitney Houston on her opening show, wow, talk about demons and resistance.  Hers kept her from singing for almost 7 years.  Thank goodness she has a wonderful mom, who stepped in so she could find her incredible gift again, get past her demons of resistance and share her voice once more with the world.

I call them my little internal demons.  They rear their ugly heads when I least expect it.  In  Pressfield’s book, he talks a lot about how resistance shows up in your life and gives you some really great concrete ways to handle and push through them.  Here’s a great quote: Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.  Wow, that is so true. And another truth is we’re not alone in our resistance, we all struggle with it. Like when I was sitting down at the computer to write this, I could thing of a million other things I had to do and got up and did a few of them because I was “resistant” to writing this blog!

So my advice to you, is to be aware and pay more attention to yourself.  When you don’t want to do something, stop for a second, see if this is resistance calling and keeping you from doing something really great.  Make a daily plan where you’re focusing on core actions that will bring in more clients and more money each day.  Don’t fill your days with too many activities that will leave you feeling empty and like you have accomplished nothing. Face your internal demons and chip away at them so you can be the success entrepreneur that you came here to be.

One last thing that I have found really helps, join a group of like-minded entrepreneurs that meet on a regular basis. I”m in 2 different mastermind mind groups which were and still are awesome in helping me grow my business.  Nothing beats having like-minded entrepreneurs, who are incredibly successful, all working together to help you ensure your success as well.  This helps keep you stay on track with your business and make bigger leaps of  progress in shorter time frames. Remember isolation is a dream killer, that’s when the resistance demon strikes best.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes, “a rising tide floats all boats.” So work on overcoming your resistance and even helping others with this a long the way. We are much stronger together than we are separately.  There’s much power within in us.  Don’t let your fear and resistance take you away from being the incredible successful entrepreneur that you truly are and came here to be.

I’ve read a veritable pantsload of creativity self-help tomes. One of the best that I’ve come across is Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life.

Twyla Tharp doesn’t mince words; she tells it like it is. Over the course of a storied career spanning around 4 decades, Tharp has enjoyed mainstream success the likes of which most of us can only dream about, yet she’s also borne the brunt of some scathing reviews. She’s a creative warrior who knows whereof she speaks on matters of creativity.

While looking for the magical secret that will unlock my creativity and transform me into a prolific, perpetually inspired artist, I’ve read works by Twyla Tharp, Julia Cameron, and Steven Pressfield.

Imagine my dismay when I learned that every single one of the brilliant creative souls listed above has the same thing to say: paradoxically, creative output is the product of a disciplined routine/ritual, applied with focus and faith every day toward a specific goal or set of goals. Shit.

Well, there is good news, here:
1. I was raised Catholic. I love ritual.
2. I thrive on order. I love routine.
3. Inspiration isn’t a capricious imp who visits only a select few. Inspiration can be wooed, courted, and–if need be–willed into existence.

I’ve experimented with a lot of different rituals over the years, none of which have really stuck. I used to run religiously. But then the weather turned cold, and my ritual blew away with the Autumn leaves. I love the discipline of my classical vocalises, but I can’t do those first thing in the morning, and if I should catch a cold and lose my voice–no more ritual, for at least a week, anyway. Julia Cameron is a vigorous advocate of morning journal-writing, but very often my journal entries meander and devolve into to-do lists.

So what can I do every single day, first thing, to get the creative juices flowing? What ritual will remain consistent, rain or shine, voice or no voice? Um, I’m going to go with: Writing My Blog, for $500, Alex!

So there it is: I’ve laid down the gauntlet for myself. Regardless of how few of you might be reading Ad Alta Voce on a daily basis, I will be here every morning. Not only do I get the chance to get the creative wheels turning right off the bat, I get to mull over topics like: music, New York, spirituality, food…all of which invite creativity.

So I hope you’ll join me as I integrate this new ritual into my daily life. I’m fairly certain that performing a daily creative ritual will be transformative. And I want to know what your ritual is. How do you navigate the creative process?

To close, here is a lecture given by Elizabeth Gilbert, as part of TED Talks. She speaks at length about “having” a genius, as opposed to “being” a genius. I’ve posted this on my Facebook page in the past, but her message is so powerful I’m including it here, too. Enjoy!

One night I was layin’ down,

I heard Papa talkin’ to Mama.

I heard Papa say, to let that boy boogie-woogie.

Cause it’s in him and it’s got to come out.

~ John Lee Hooker, “Boogie Chillen”

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius. Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling. A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul’s seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star’s beacon and Polaris.

~ Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Want an adventure?  The Holy Spirit is genius!!! Think about it: How has your spirit been deformed by resistance to God’s endowed gifts in your life and the Spirit’s guidance of that calling? The opposite of resistance is acceptance. Enjoy the freedom and fun of operating from the center of who you were made to be! Take some time to acknowledge your gratitude for the opportunities that this opens up to you.

P.S. To embrace your genius, read Pressfield’s book. A kick in the creative butt for those of us who need it.

My knowledge of this book came from reading a blogger’s take on the movie, “300“.  I do not recall the site anymore but I do recall the blogger’s disappointment in the movie’s distance from historical facts. (As per another blog, “300″ was supposed to be based on some comic book  and was meant to be more of a visual treat rather than a factual account on the Battle of Thermopylae.)  This book is one he expressly recommended as one of the best fiction novels on that famous battle as the events and descriptions thereof are well-researched and hold true to history.

Author  :  Steven Pressfield

First Publication Date :  October 20, 1998

First Publisher   :  Doubleday

This Edition’s Publication Date :  September 1999

This Edition’s Publisher :  Bantam Books

No. of Pages :  460

ISBN : 0-553-58053-I

The Story :

After the Persian’s victory at the pass of Thermopylae, a Greek soldier is discovered as the sole survivor of that horrendous battle.  At King Xerxes’ command, the man, Xeones, is spared and nursed as much as could be done for a man with grievous wounds.  It is Xerxes’ desire to know his enemies  whose paltry numbers have decimated a staggering multitude in his army.  As much as his desire is so,  it is also the Greek’s urgent need to tell the story to immortalize the men who valorously held the pass against insurmountable odds.

He begins his discourse with his life’s story, from a homeless boy of a conquered city to a helot in service to a Spartan master.  Of  Sparta he describes its military way of life, where self-discipline and subordination of the needs of one for the many are paramount virtues.  Boys, as young as 12, are subjected to military training, a way of life that would make them into formidable warriors and therefore, real men, ready to defend their state for honor.  Battle training does not merely mean molding superb physiques and extraordinary fighting prowess.  There also exists the Spartan psychology of war in which battle philosophies are inculcated to create a strong foundation of selflessness and a state of mind that renounces fear in the face of death.  This has made Sparta’s military might superior to all as their battle readiness is a product of complete physical, mental, and emotional endurance.  Even Spartan women are physically fit  and stoically ready to give up husbands and sons to defend Sparta.

Under the huge threat of the Persian invasion, Sparta rallies other Greek states to counter this dangerous intention.  The Spartan king, Leonidas, selects 300 soldiers to march to Thermopylae to defend this narrow pass into Greece.  These 300, along with their Greek allies totals a handful 7,000 against 2,000,000 Persian enemies.

Xeones’ narrative breathes life into the personalities behind this historically famous “last stand” and earns for the Hellenes, in particular Sparta, the respect of the enemy who are awed by Greek determination to defend their country to the last man.

The Review :

Few books on war may ever enthrall one as much as “Gates of Fire“, Steven Pressfield’s brilliantly executed story on the Battle of Thermopylae.  The story is done with great mastery for depicting human nature, Spartan culture and psychology, and ancient Greek warfare and battle tactics.

Although war and the violence of  hand-to-hand combat may be alien to most of us, Pressfield makes the sights, smells, sounds, and emotional experiences of the fight so palpable, it intrudes the comfort of one’s reading chair.  One can feel the grit, the determination, the almost inhuman physical and mental endurance, and the nobility of it all.

The characterization is very good.   His ancient warriors do put a new dimension on the concept of  “real men”.   Aside from pure brawn and unimaginable stamina, they are able to transcend basic human nature in the face of insuperable odds.  One may be drawn to how humanly vulnerable the characters are to many weaknessees, like fear, the desire for self preservation, etc. and be filled with admiration for their ability to rise above themselves for the good of the many.

Pressfield’s writing has a poetic quality, rich in metaphors  and analogy, which greatly enhances the descriptive style of his work.

“…Instead each warrior’s lungs pumped only for breath; chests heaved like foundry bellows, sweat coursed into the ground in runnels, while the sound which arose from the throats of the contending masses was like nothing so much as a myriad quarrymen, each harnessed to the twined rope of the sled, groaning and straining to drag some massive stone across the resisting earth. ” — p. 297

What may please one more is that although “Gates of Fire” is a fictional novel,  it is , I believe, laboriously researched and therefore historically accurate.  The author’s knowledge of the battle and characters seem so intimate as to make one believe he had been there himself.  What also makes the book more special is the fact that it also deals with interesting Spartan psychology and philosophy of war:

“War not peace, produces virtue.  War, not peace, purges vice.  War, and the preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man.  It unites him with his brothers and binds them in a selfless love, eradicating in the crucible all which is base and ignoble.  There in the holy mill of murder the meanest of men may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honor before the gods.   Do not despise war….do not delude yourself that mercy and compassion are virtues superior to andreia, to manly valor.” — p.157

“How does one conquer fear of death, the most primordial of terrors….Dogs in a pack find courage to take on a lion.  Each hound knows its place.  He fears the dog ranked above and feeds off the fear of the dog below.  Fear conquers fear.  This is how we Spartans do it, counterpoising to fear of death a greater fear:  that of dishonor.  Of exclusion from the pack.”  — p.265

“Habit will be your champion.  When you train the mind to think one way and one way only, when you refuse to allow it to think in another, that will produce great strength in battle. — p. 159

The excerpts above may appear verbose or too lofty for some when taken as is, but as part of the book it doesn’t seem so.  Steven Pressfield manages to balance his writing to create a wonderful reading experience of a novel — a  remarkably inspirational gem I think few of its genre can equal.

To Read Or Not To Read :

Definitely, a must read!  I must say this is one of the best “battle books”  I’ve ever come across.  It’s a testosterone-laden narrative full of blood, guts, muscle, and masculine stoicism;  yet it is poignant too for the tremendous sacrifice, honor, and virtues  all upheld in this story as well.

For budding ancient war enthusiasts, you will be thrilled by the accurate depiction of battle techniques, strategies, rigorous training methods and the unwavering mindset one must have to become truly Spartan.

Somehow it is hard to believe that men with such physical and mental endurance such as these Spartan warriors ever existed.  But the  mind-boggling part is that they did!  The human mind and body is actually capable of so much more than what we believe so.

Imagine tearing your hamstring (agonizing enough in itself)  and still getting up to fight, using tremendous leg power to push against a human enemy wall, pushing back in return, all the while carrying a spear and a massive oak and bronze shield.   This you should do without surrendering to pain and self-pity, for hours on end with hardly a respite for food and water.   Sounds ridiculously incredible?  Yet this could have been what a warrior must have endured to keep the phalanx intact:

“…I could see the warrior’s feet, at first churning in disarray for purchase on the blood and gore-beslimed earth, now settle into a unison, a grinding relentless cadence….With a heave, the warriors’ shield-side foot pressed forward, bows-on to the enemy;  now the shield-side foot planted at a ninety-degree angle, dug into  the mud; the arch sank as every stone of the man’s weight found purchase upon the insole, and, with left shoulder planted into the inner bowl of the shield whose broad outer surface was  pressed into the back of  the comrade before him, he summoned all force of tissue and tendon to surge and heave upon the beat.  Like ranked oarsmen straining upon the shaft of a single oar, the unified push of the men’s exertions propelled the ship of the phalanx forward into the tide of the enemy. “— pp. 296 – 297

Well, if such “supermen”  existed before, one may come to think :  how come we don’t make many of them anymore?  Tee Hee!

As An Aside :

It is interesting to note  : “‘Gates of Fire‘ is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ Reading list. It is taught at West Point and Annapolis and at the Marine Corps Basic School at Quantico.”  — Wikipedia

It has been floating around that this movie will be adapted to cinema.  However, this project is still in development with no particular date in sight.  Don’t be lazy though and wait for the movie.  Pick up this book;  it’ll be well worth your time.

In A Nutshell :

Steven Pressfield is now on my personal list of fave authors for “Gates Of Fire“, a very beautifully written graphical novel which showcases the author’s superior writing talent.    This is one of those books you can read again and again through the years.  Definitely a keeper and a treasure on my shelf.

My Mark :  Excellent;  Superb!

]]> http://theendisforever.com/2009/08/13/thursday-morning-motivation/ Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:18:39 +0000 theendisforever http://theendisforever.com/2009/08/13/thursday-morning-motivation/

“Are you paralyzed with fear?  That’s a good sign.

Fear is good.  Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator.  Fear tells us what we have to do.

Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.  Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that the enterprise is important to us and to the growth of the soul.  That’s why we feel so much Resistance.  If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.

Have you ever watched Inside the Actors Studio? The host James Lipton, invariably asks his guests, “What factors make you decide to take a particular role?” The actor always answers: “Because I’m afraid of it.”

The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch.  He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself.

Is He Scared? Yes. He’s petrified. (Conversely, the professional turns down roles that he’s done before.  He’s not afraid of them anymore.  Why waste his time?)

So if your’re paralyzed with fear, it’s a good sign.  It shows you what you have to do.” -Steven Pressfield

About Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1943 to a Navy father and mother. He graduated from Duke University in 1965. The previous post was an exert from his 2002 book, The War of Art. Mr. Pressfield has worked as an advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, tractor-trailer driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout and attendant in a mental hospital.  He can be located here.

As Steven says, “It is one thing to study war, and another to live the warrior’s life.”

I’m ready for the morning!

-jordan

I have so much on my mind. There is the potential for so much to be written.

I should be using these empty days to be productive, but I can’t get myself to do anything.

This is a horrible feeling.

“Resistance knows that the more psychic energy we expend dredging and re-dredging the tired, boring injustices of our personal lives, the less juice we have to do our work.”

“The condition becomes a work of art in itself, a shadow version of the real creative act the victim is avoiding by expending so much care cultivating his condition.”

“Remember, the part of us that we imagine need healing is not the part we create from; that part is much deeper and stronger. The part we create from can’t be touched by anything our parents did, or society did. That part is unsullied, uncorrupted; soundproof, waterproof, and bulletproof. In fact, the more troubles we’ve got, the better and richer that part becomes.”

“Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.

Those are segments (not chronological) of Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art. Read it.

Time is a matter of fact/ And it’s gone and it’ll never come back/ And mine is wasted all the time/ Tears, stupid tears, bring me down/ Tie my brain into a knot/ These tears, stupid tears, bring me down

-Daniel Johnston

"Look, I'm on MTV, David." (Probably the most supremely happy moment I've ever seen. Happiness to the point of being pretty heartbreaking... Watch the documentary.)

I woke up this morning after a night full of strange and vivid dreams. My mother always told me how much she hated hearing about my dreams, so I’ll keep them to myself, but let me tell you they were like watching quirky short films that I only wish I could recreate when I’m awake. They were emotional and funny and scary and real; the kind that you are sort of sad to wake up from and you are reminded of all day.

Dreams are, by definition, creations of your own subconscious. It’s all you. All your creativity. So maybe if I’m feeling totally unmotivated and untalented, I should just crawl into bed and be reminded that in the back of my mind, underneath all of the neuroses and issues and walls, I have a thriving and original imagination that I could potentially tap.

Goodnight!

See the ladybug?

Well, one problem –among many others–  is as follows:

Nobody wants to read your shit.

Let me repeat that. Nobody–not even your dog or your mother–has the slightest interest in your commercial for Rice Krispies or Delco batteries or Preparation H. Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and Tchopotoulis.

It isn’t that people are mean or cruel. They’re just busy.

Nobody wants to read your shit.

Thus sayeth the great Steven Pressfield, expounding on the lesson he learned from his early and formative adventures in Don Draper-land. Me personally, anything to do with sesame chicken kinda captures my attention, but I take his point.

Every now and then daily readership around here might pop up into the forties or fifties or something. I usually credit that to a misleading –though unintentionally so–  tag. Like Cool Names. That one doubtless suckered in a few of the parentally-inclined looking to find just the right handle for the impending papoose. And Spr*ngst**n, you just can’t put his name and the word t*ck*ts in the same post at all. Found that out.

Decided to try a Sesame Chicken tag. In the interests of pure research, you understand.

Now, I don’t take my low numbers personally. This blog is just me, kinda mumbling to myself. Sometimes, Mrs. Stagger to the contrary, I even know what I’m talking about. Most times, well…

Pressfield, though. A whole other matter. If you enjoy reading novels, read his. I have my faves –Gates of Fire natch, but also Last of the Amazons (love me an uber-woman)– but they’re all pretty good. If you’re trying to do anything in a creative vein that’s kinda hard and you’re running yourself into all kinds of roadblocks and you’re looking for inspiration or a few practical tips or maybe just a kick in the ass, The War of Art is terrific. In fact, ask me, non-freakin’- pareil.

Also, check out his blog, and especially look at his videos regarding tribalism. This shit, you need.

Lezlie from Books ‘N Border Collies recently reviewed Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield.  Here’s an excerpt:

No one I’ve read writes battle scenes the way Pressfield can. I completely lost track of what the story actually was in Killing Rommel, but I was completely immersed in the action. He makes you feel you’re in the tank, trudging through the desert. He makes you feel you are the one deciding to open fire on enemy soldiers and he makes you feel the remorse when it’s over. You are face to face with Field Marshall Rommel and you are remembering the men you fought beside and the men who died on both sides.

Click here to read the entire review.

**Attention participants:  remember to email us a link to your reviews, and we’ll post them here so we can see what everyone is reading!**

I Googled self doubt today. It’s a state of mind that drops in on me occasionally and, frankly, I wanted to know how to just get rid of it. I thought, too, that if I could find a remedy, what a great thing to be able to pass on to others.

The Google search results didn’t disappoint me.

I found links for “squash self doubt,” “overcome self doubt, ” and “break-through self doubt.”

Dealing with self doubt started to sound like a battle or a life-long quest, not something I could get rid of in a day. Bummer.

Deflated, I decided to pick up my copy of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I knew there had to be something in there. And there was. Something radical!

Pressfield says suggests and idea about self doubt so opposite of where I was headed that it just might work. On page 39 he writes:

Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find ourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are.

I was shocked and then convinced all in one breath. Can the plague of self doubt actually be an ally?

It’s true that any yearning desire is the one most easily doubted.

I often ask my clients what they see themselves doing in their wildest dreams and the real answer is always buried deep beneath a stash of more responsible or acceptable answers. When we finally get to the real thing after some digging, it’s quickly peppered by those self-doubting question that vaporize it into just an idea. Yet at the same time, it’s still the solid truth.

Before I tried to solve the riddle of why we doubt what is so solidly true and real, Pressfield answered that question for me in his final line of the excerpt that reads:

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

I get it now. Self doubt what is the ally whose job it is to steer us in the direction of our dreams — a direction that’s uncertain, new, impossible — and supply us with feelings that show us what it is worth the fight.

There is no fight in something that is easy, fake, ripped off or done for us.

Self doubt is a natural reaction for the warrior who lives her dreams and defends them from herself.

The idea mentioned in the book The War of Art is that if you do what you need to do – which is write – then the Muse or the gods or whatever, will come to support you.

I think I just experienced that! I just wrote this looooong blog post which I put off for a few hours because it was daunting. But you know what happened? Once I finally got myself to start writing it, after a certain point in the post, my writing, somehow, majorly improved. If you read the post, I believe it’s split into two. The first part is sort of choppy and the second part is really nice and flowly. At least that is how it comes across to me. Maybe I should just keep the second part and throw out the beginning. : ) But I cannot because the beginning has very important ideas.

Anyway, that was a very exciting experience for me because it sort of means that I’m capable and it’s possible. What? I don’t know. But I must go to sleep.

At Heroes Con last month, Freddie got a chance to interview Jonathan Hickman. Mr. Hickman is the writer of The Nightly News, Red Mass For Mars, Transhuman, Pax Romana, Secret Warriors, and the upcoming Fantastic Four arc starting with issue #570.

The film that Mr. Hickman references toward the end of the interview is called Fever Pitch. (starring Colin Firth, not Jimmy Fallon) Be a good consumer and buy it right now!

Keep listening until the very end of the interview for a special message from Marvel Comics superstar, Matt Fraction.

I just finished reading Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. It’s basically a self-help book for creative individuals who find themselves feeling blocked or stuck in their artistic endeavors. As an artist, I know I’ve experience my share of moments (especially lately): writer’s block, lack of motivation to finish a painting or a poem…or a melody on the piano…or a set of song lyrics…. So I figured this book would become my new best friend.

Now, I must admit, if the choice were mine, I probably wouldn’t put Pressfield’s book on the national bestseller list. Considering that it’s a self-help book, I really didn’t find it to be all that helpful (then again, I’m always a bit skeptical of self-helps books so this particular book’s lack of helpfulness didn’t really come as a surprise). I thoroughly enjoy reading but I’ll be honest: there were definitely times where I had to force myself to turn the pages of this one. But every now and then, I would stumble upon a chapter that made me pump my mental fist in the air and yell, “Yes! This guy knows exactly what I’m going through!”

I want to share one of those ‘aha moments’ with you. For those of you who are artists, I hope this encourages you. But first, a little background information:

As I briefly mentioned earlier, I’ve recently been struggling with many of my artistic projects. I feel as though I’ve become a writer who can’t write, a musician who can’t compose a single melody or chord progression, a painter who is too lazy to drag out her paint set, a photographer who is too unmotivated to look at the world through the vibrant eye of her camera lens. So what am I? I’ve somehow convinced myself that I am…incapable. Incapable of creating something thought-provoking or memorable, something that anyone else would find even the least bit interesting.

And then I read this brief chapter in The War of Art. And I found myself going: “Waaaait a second!”

Why do we get to these points? Certainly, I can’t be the only one who gets stuck (if I were, then Steven Pressfield probably would not have written a book on the subject). So, as artists, why do we get to these moments in our lives where we stop doing what we love—which is creating art—because we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that we’re just not good enough? And good enough for whom? Exactly whose expectations are we trying to live up to? Do we even know?

Pressfield has a few things to say about that, and I found his chapter entitled  ‘The Definition of a Hack’ particularly enlightening. So I thought I’d post the chapter here.  Again, I pray that this encourages you.

THE DEFINITION OF A HACK: (pp. 152-153)

I learned this from Robert McKee. A hack, he says, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for.

The hack condescends to his audience. He thinks he’s superior to them. The truth is, he’s scared to death of them or, more accurately, scared of being authentic in front of them, scared of writing what he really feels or believes, what he himself thinks is interesting. He’s afraid it won’t sell. So he tries to anticipate what the market (a telling word) wants, then gives it to them.

In other words, the hack writes hierarchically. He writes what he imagines will play well in the eyes of others. He does not ask himself, ‘What do I myself want to write? What do I think is important?’ Instead, he asks, ‘What’s hot? What can I make a deal for?’

The hack is like a politician who consults the polls before he takes a position. He’s a demagogue. He panders.

It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you’ve sold out on your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.

I was starving as a screenwriter when the idea for The Legend of Bagger Vance came to me. It came as a book, not as a movie. I met with my agent to give him the bad news. We both knew that first novels take forever and sell for nothing. Worse, a novel about golf, even if we could find a publisher, is a straight shot to the remainder bin.

But the Muse had me. I had to do it. To my amazement, the book succeeded critically and commercially better than anything I’d ever done, and others since have been lucky too. Why? My best guess is this: I trusted what I wanted, not what I thought would work. I did what I myself thought was interesting, and left its reception to the gods.

The artist can’t do his work hierarchically. He has to work territorially.

Motives. I think that’s the heart of what Pressfield is trying to get at in this chapter. As artists, what drives us to make our art? What drives you? Is it the sincere passion and love that you have for art itself? Or is it really just some sort of longing for acceptance that you’re trying to fill via art? I had to ask myself such questions. I had to wonder if my creative ‘stuckness’ was due to the fact that I’d run out of ideas or due to my skewed motives? I ultimately had to ask myself: am I a hack?

Some of the people at school (see below) read Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. I find it interesting to look at what authors are doing besides writing. Pressfield, who wrote Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire, and so on has taken his research on Alexander the Great’s Afghan campaign and looked at Afghanistan. He doesn’t pretend to be a general or historian and adds new information as he receives it (including a youtube from a Pashtun tribesman!)

The military has made use of writers’ imaginations in the past. Interesting post on why military officers need novels that includes speculation about what may have happened regarding Vietnam if more decision-makers had read Greene’s The Quiet American.

:some of my class of not very quiet Americans

In the past few days I’ve come across multiple references to “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield and Tom Spanbauer’s theory of “dangerous fiction.”

I don’t know much about Pressfield’s book, but I believe it’s about the figurative wars we execute against all those things that would keep us from making good art. In this sense, it strikes me that art is war:  external pressures (paying the bills, pleasing our families or fellows with our own hung-up senses of what people expect), internal tendencies (complacency, fear, isolation), these things cut down would-be creators with greater tiny blows than censorship or provincialism or other machinations we admit to hating.

I’ve written before about the idea of art as war in another way (and I imagine there are many) with specific reference to fiction:  the give and take between writer and reader for the meaning of a thing.  We’ve been considering herethe degree to which memoir might always be confession (if you haven’t seen this post, you should engage the comments left by John Bresland, Adrian Hopkins, and Brian Russell), but I think readers try just as hard to locate a writer’s gods and vices in fiction.  The less famous you are as a writer, the truer this is (especially at the beginning), as the people reading your manuscripts are people you trust, people who know a thing or two about you and see them in your work where they might not really be (or where you’re unaware they are).

Readers are right to do this.  If your fiction is good, you’re in it.  Same for your gods and vices and Weltanschauung.  Still, you control the rhythm.  You control the voice.  Don’t cede that over to received language.  And don’t worry about whatever readers take.  Let them take it all.  Why else should you write?

I think this is what Spanbauer is getting at when he advocates writing dangerously.  Dangerous writing (sometimes it just makes sense to crib from Wikipedia) is “writing what personally scares or embarrasses you in order to explore and artistically express those fears honestly.”   Spanbauer says:

On the surface, that may not seem like a dangerous or even daring act. But it is. When the words one believes to be the truth about oneself are actually written, they take on a power that is no longer exclusively controlled by the writer. The spin that could be applied when the ideas were merely in a person’s mind or coming out of a person’s mouth melt away. The words lay the heart bare for all to see. Those words become a separate entity, an unflinching, unvarnished document of the self.

This war, then, is a war of definition.  We cede pure control of meaning, of what we mean.  I can’t help but read Atticus Finch in light of Axel Heyst, and that influences my impressions of Harper Lee and her project.  But writing dangerously on purpose as Spanbauer suggests, as he and others (Chuck Palahniuk) do, is a conscious choice to voice things you might not really want people to know about you.  Putting them in the mouths of narrators helps the reader understand that you, yourself, don’t mean everything you, yourself say through a character.  But having the freedom to say these things in character is empowering.  I guess most dangerous things are.

When I start Milton County Power & Light by having Ray Falcone say

The bridges in Milltown are mostly pre-War and the rivets bleed rust in long shit-colored stains.   If you were born here after 1970 the city was never safe and The Steel was never strong.   The limp-dick trails of blue smoke barely rising over Milton County between the Lehigh and the Delaware wave like thin bone fingers when you’re driving through the mountains toward New Jersey or New Enlgand and everything below you is a clichéd rustbelt crèche.  A goddamn fucking joke.  You go to college somewhere else and pick another shitty town to repeat your parents’ lives in so you can say you left.  Success is changing zip-codes.

some people are going to think that I hate post-industrial Pennsylvania.  Anyone who knows me knows I don’t,  but sometimes Ray Falcone does.  Even more to the point, there are honest-to-God real people who feel like Ray does.  Sometimes I’m one of them.  Sometimes Ray isn’t.  People I know and people I don’t, writing in the spaces between feeling strongly one way or the other.  I think it’s important to say things you feel bad saying and might not personally mean in the person of characters who aren’t villains.   To Spanbauer’s point, I might not believe that every hang-up these people have is valid, but I’ve probably felt them.  The danger for me is you thinking that maybe I still do.  Maybe that’s a shallow risk.  Maybe not.  Putting that shit out there, though, and letting Ray and the others play in it and seeing where they come to…that tells me a hell of a lot more.