Special Guest: Steven Pressfield - Part 1

Hello and welcome to the Storygrid podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better writer. I'm your host, Tim Grall, and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to tell a story that works. In this episode, I actually have two amazing experts joining me. First, of course, I have Sean Coyne. He's the editor with 25 years experience and he is the creator of StoryGrid. But alongside him is an author, Steven Pressfield, who Shaun has been partners with for a long time. He's been editing Steve Pressfield's work for over 20 years. He's an amazing author and he's joining us as well to talk about his brand new book, Nobody Wants to Read.

You'd shit.

It's a great book and it's much more positive than maybe the title suggests. And we dive into resistance and how you can become a better writer, how your career track can take. And it's a really great episode. This is part one of a two part series where Steve is joining us. I know you're going to love it. We're going to jump in and get started.

So, Steve, it was interesting as I was reading just the first few chapters of your new book. You didn't come from a family of anybody that did like creative stuff. Is that true?

Yeah, that's true. So for me, like, the idea of being a writer was like totally from left field. And that was probably one of the reasons why it took so long for me to kind of embrace it. Cause I came from a family of business people and there just was nobody that was creative at all in the family. No artists or anything like that.

Yeah. So I was taught that I'm a very pragmatic sort of fella. And that was very much taught to me. And so I've been working with writers now for a while and I've written two books, but they're very like nonfiction. Y this is how to do something practical books.

Right.

And so as I've started to transition into writing fiction, I have just dealt with so much embarrassment about it. Like when people ask me about, I'm like, please don't make me talk about this. You know, like, did you experience a lot of that early on?

Yeah, but I think everybody feels that way. Even somebody that's that grew up thinking of themselves as an artist, I think. Would you agree, Sean? It's like when someone asks you, like, what's it about with this thing you're working on? It's like, you know, can I see your baby while it's still in the womb.

Let it at least get a chance to get up and walk on a diaper or something like that.

Well, I always feel like when I'm trying to explain it, I'm like, this is so lame. Like, I can't figure out how to talk about it where it doesn't just come out as like, oh, man, this is awful. Nobody's going to want to read this.

And yet, you know, there are these people who. I hate them that these writers who can pitch their stuff, you know, and you ask them, you know, what's it about? Oh, it's about the Vikings. They land and they say, somebody from Jupiter is a white story. You go, oh, my God, sounds great.

Why can't I tell my story like that?

Well, so it just cracks me up that the name of your book is Nobody wants to read your shit. Because usually if we're trying to get people to do something creative, we don't tell them that part, right? We tell them all. So, like, why are you leading? You know, your lead is nobody's ever going to want to read anything you write.

Because that, to me is like the single fundamental lesson that any artist or any writer needs to know. That's the foundation of everything. Because the. The corollary to that as. As you know, Tim, is that since nobody wants to read your shift, you, the writer, have got to come up with something brilliant, something original, something that's so compelling that you can overcome that. And I think a lot of the bad writing that goes on that nobody. That really nobody does want to read is because the writer thinks everybody is going to want to read it, and they don't try hard enough, and they don't come up with enough of original idea, and they don't have the empathy to put themselves in the reader's shoes and ask themselves, page one, page two, page three, is this interesting? Am I hooking them? Am I giving them something that the reader, writer relationship is a transaction where the reader is giving you, the writer, a very valuable commodity, which is their time and their attention. And that's not free, that's valuable, and you've got to be worthy of that. So, like, and nobody wants to read your shit. Where that idea came from was my first job in advertising, where you really know when you're writing ads, nobody wants to read them at all. They hey, so your whole day is just spent thinking, how can I make Preparation H interesting? You know, how can I make effort and denture cleaner compelling? So compelling that some, you know, and that's great. Training, because you actually can do it if you're good enough. So anyway, that's where that comes from, you know. And the whole book is sort of, as you know, it's like really about a writer's career. It talks about writing in five different fields. Advertising, fiction, screenwriting, nonfiction, and self help, which I've sort of been into over 45 plus years. And how. Because I think a lot of writers. I know I'm blathering on here, Tim, but we can always edit. This stuff is people start writing and they don't think of their. Of it in terms of a career. They think if I could just get one thing, you know, then I'll. I'll die, I'll die happy. But it's a career. It's your whole life, you know, and it does evolve. Anyway, I'll stop here at that.

Well, if I could jump in, Tim and Sean just. Steve and I were just talking, I don't know, 20 minutes ago about some new projects. And I. Off the hand said Steve, well, how long was Gates of Fire? Was it like 120, 140,000 words? And his response was, I have no idea how long it was. And I think that's a really important thing to think about, is that when you are thinking of the next project and you are focusing on your career and thinking about what is stimulating and making you passionate enough to continue, you don't think about the novel that you wrote 10 years ago. You love it, you think it's wonderful, but you put it in your rear view mirror. And I think a lot of people have this magical idea that if I can just finish this one book and Steve and I know a lot of people like this, then everything is going to come into place for me and everything's going to link together. And I think one of the reasons that nobody wants to read your shit is so compelling to me is that it tells the writer, you need to get beyond your own self. You need to think beyond what you want to get out of your story. You need to think and be empathetic to the reader primarily. You need to think about what they want and give them that in a way that is unique and refreshing and innovative. And you can't just think, oh, once my book is done, the skies will clear and the sun will shine.

Yeah, I have a friend of mine who's in the middle of that right now. Like I was thinking the other day, he's three years in to writing his first novel and I'm like, you've got, you've got to finish, dude. Like, I remember two and a half years ago, we were at a conference together and he was like, showing me all his notes and I'm like, this is. I haven't read the book. But like, his idea of the book is extremely compelling. And I'm like, will you please finish? Because I would like to read this thing at some point. But, you know, he's open about this, of just like there's this pressure on himself that he's got to write a best seller or the whole thing is worthless. What would you say to somebody like that?

Well, it's certainly a natural thought, you know, and I've always thought that too. But it's, you know, it's sort of a question of are you looking at this racket, the writing racket, from the inside out or from the outside in? And if you're looking from the outside in, then you're thinking about how other people are going to respond to. To your book. Right. Is it going to sell? Is it going to, you know, am I going to get a bunch of likes or whatever the hell it is?

But if you look at from the inside, you're asking yourself, it's like, I've got this baby and I'm going to want to give birth to it. And is it important to me to produce this thing? And that, to me is the way to do it, is the proper attitude. Because you could write Gone with the Wind and it can get out there and nobody even knows it's there or nobody buys it or nobody likes it. You know, look at Marco Rubio.

I'm sure he's. A few months ago, he was on top of the world. So I'm from the school of writing it from looking at it from the inside out. Because.

You know, the muse will. There'll be another trolley coming down the track. The muse will have book number two and book number three. And I'm sure you're thinking of that way, in a way, Tim.

Two.

You know, what's book number two? Three, four, five, six. Right. But trust me, they are there. They're all lined up, waiting like airplanes and holding patterns, circling. And your job, or any writer's job is just to do number one, and then when that's done, do number two. And so if I were talking to your friend, I'd say it's great to want to have a best seller, but the odds are long. Just do the. Just do the best you can with what you got and start the next one right away.

Yeah. And personally, I feel like Getting the first book done is just like, I just got to get it out of the way. Almost like. But at the same time, I told this to Sean yesterday. I'm like, it was around word 8,000. I finished my writing for the day, and then I picked up the book 112263 by Stephen King, and I started reading it, and I was just like, oh, I suck at this.

And there's just this intense. No matter how much I prepare, no matter whatever my writing, I'm now 50 years behind Stephen King or whatever. And it's like, I just have a lot of work to do before I'm actually good at this.

Well, we talked about this yesterday, too, and I think there's a big element of understanding that beauty is imperfect, in that you cannot write a first draft that is going to be perfect. And there is going to come a time after you've gone through four or five editorial rounds, or however many, when you have to let it go. And there's a funny story, today's New York Times, about a woman who published a novel 20 years ago, 20 years ago, and she couldn't let it go. So she rewrote the novel, and they're republishing it a completely different company. And that's a situation where she let that one first novel torment her to the place where she felt that she could make it even better and better and better. And now she's written a second first novel, and there are probably a lot of books that were circling her, as Steve says, that just never got written because she was so obsessed with perfecting that one story. So with your friend and his inability to lock it down after three years, that happens to just about everybody. And there comes a point where you say to yourself, it's done. And, you know, I'm going to do my best for it and see if I can find a home for it. And if it doesn't find a home, I'm going to put it in a drawer and I'm going to work on number two.

But, you know, Tim, further to what you were saying about you read your own stuff over and you say it sucks. That, to me, is resistance.

You know, it's mostly while I'm writing. I told Sean this. It's like the painter that's looking at the beautiful landscape, and no matter how hard they try, they can't get the paint to show that. So I've got this. I read a lot. I know what good writing sounds like. And no matter how much I try, I know what I'm Writing does not sound like what I. And oh, who's the guy that hosts this American Life?

Ira Glass.

Ira Glass. He did this great little talk on this and he's like, early on, the problem is your taste is so much better than your ability.

So, you know, what you're producing is just not on par with what is actually good. And you just kind of have to do that long enough to where you get better.

Yeah, there's no other way around it in any field at all. Very few of us are Bob Dylan, where the first thing out of the box, you know, is blowing in the wind.

Well, so when it comes to writing in particular, you know, talk a little bit more about writing for other people, because what I struggle with, and when I work with writers, I know fiction writers have this idea, I think in general, it's like, well, it's easy to write nonfiction because you're writing 10 Ways to Lose Weight or whatever, but fiction is different because, you know, it's just entertainment or whatever. How do you approach fiction versus nonfiction, self help type writing?

Ah, that's a great question. I mean, fiction for me always starts with a compelling idea, but it's only compelling to me. Or that's how I judge it. In other words, every time I've tried to sort of project it into the marketplace, into the idea of is this commercial I've always done, it's never worked for me. Whereas my first two books were the Legend of Vagabonds and Gates of Fire, and both of them were successful. And both of them, when I started them and all the way through them, I was convinced that nobody would be interested, that it was a crazy subject that no one except me could possibly care about. And I didn't care. I was just compelled to do them. And to my amazement, they found an audience. I'm not sure what. What the lesson of that is, but I know that other times I thought, oh, this is a great hook. I've really got something here, you know, and it would just go out and fizzle. So again, I think it's, for me at least, it's kind of writing from the inside out and what is compelling to me and what hooks me.

But how does that meld with the whole writing for other people and making sure you're writing something interesting and. And you said, you know, just a few minutes ago, you said, too many people just write for themselves when they don't think about making it entertaining and making it all these things. Yeah. So how do you kind of put those?

That's a great Question. But the answer to that is that within the idea, at least for me, the idea that I think is only interesting to me, I'm trying to structure it in such a way that it's compelling to other people. I'm definitely using every skill that I have, asking myself, how do I start this thing? How do I hook the reader? How do I make it spool out the information? You know, slowly enough to keep the reader hooked, but fast enough that they know where the hell they are in the story. So I'm sort of saying to myself, well, probably nobody else is going to be interested in this, but God damn it, I'm going to make them interested in this or write it as interestingly as I possibly can. So in other words, I am constantly thinking of, is the reader involved? Have I got the story working so the reader's hooked and is continually drawn through the story?

If I could just speak to that, too, Tim. I think craft is so important here. Just a little story from 20 years ago when I was at Doubleday. I heard on the street that there was this woman who had written this proposal about some horse. I was like, who's gonna buy a book about a horse? Some horse nobody could remember? And of course, that book turned out to be Seabiscuit. And I think that's a really good example of somebody, Laura Hillebrand, who was just absolutely passionate and obsessed about the role that a horse played during the Great Depression. And she said to herself, man, this stuff is great for me. How am I going to bring in other people to see the world the way I see it? How does Picasso figure out how to draw a bull in six strokes that everybody is immediately going to recognize as a bull? And so Steve's point, it sounds like it's sort of oxymoronic in a way. Like, you have to write for other people, but you have to be driven internally. That doesn't seem to make sense, but it absolutely does. Because what you need to do is to find the thing that's passionate to you and translate that passion using story structure and craft in a way that it will compel other people. That's what great storytellers do. You know, they could be speechwriters. They could be advertising executives. And so it's beginning with your own internal love and passion for a particular subject. And then. Then with the statement that Steve says, and with the title of this book, understanding that nobody wants to read your shit, meaning your internal fascination, unless you're able to translate that passion into a story that they can intuit. And understand and be compelled by.

Very well put.

Well, so there's this part and nobody wants to read your shit. I'm finding it really quickly here. Okay, so it's section 22, the version I have. And you say, ask not what is the solution, Ask what is the problem? The problem in fiction, from the thrashing writer's point of view is almost always, what is this damn thing about? In other words, what's the theme? And this is what I've struggled with too. And I read your recent blog post about it and I told Sean, I'm like, it sounds like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth. Because on one hand you're like, you got to know your theme to be able to write. You got to know your theme and then you list out all your best selling books and you're like, I didn't know the theme for any of these things, you know, And I'm like, well, what is it then? Like, you know, how do you. And it's interesting because that's what I've struggled with in talking to fiction writers, because again, in the self help kind of nonfiction or business book or whatever, it's very much like, here's the problem and here's how to solve that problem. So what is the problem like when you bring that to the page in fiction, like you say, you're still solving a problem in fiction.

What?

Talk about that a little bit.

Well, let's see if I can articulate this. Let's go really deep here. Let's get into the real metaphysical world. I'm a believer that ideas come to you, at least story ideas come to you from another dimension of reality, from the muse, from your deep unconscious, from something like that. And why did they come to you? Why did they seize you? I think in a way it's a form of the evolution of your soul or self therapy or something like that. In that something in the evolution of your life, your deep internal life is crying out to you to shine a light on. You need to bring something into consciousness. If you were working with a therapist, the therapist would be compelling you to dig into this thing. But the way you're sort of yourself, via the unconscious, via the museum operates, it's almost like a dream. The story is like a dream that you're having in a way. So what I'm trying to say here is something compels you. You feel you have a story about the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. You don't know why this grabs you. You don't know what's the reason why it's hooking you, but it is hooking you, and there is a real reason. So you sort of put it out on the table, almost like a dead body on an autopsy table, or a living body that you're trying to bring to life, like Frankenstein. Does this make any sense, Tim? Are you with me here?

I'm still listening, yeah.

Then when the question is theme, you got this Frankenstein on the table in front of you, and you're asking yourself, you know it's for real. You know it's alive, you see it's twitching, its eyelids are fluttering, you know the blood is flowing through it, and you're looking at it and you say, what the hell is this thing? You know, it's like a dream, like you're saying of a dream. What is this about? And then that's when the writer's craft comes in, you know, now you can fake it. You can go on instinct, you know, even if you don't know the theme. You're just so compelled by this Frankenstein device. You say, well, let me plug the electricity into, you know, his left finger here, you know, and whatever it is, that the guy will actually come to life and get up and walk. But if you're really a craftsman, if you are Dr. Frankenstein, you're a genius, you say to yourself, ah, this is why the story of the 300 Spartans appeals to me, why I need to bring this out, because it's about such and such, such and such, such and such. And when you know that I could go into great, great detail about this, when you know the theme, you automatically know the protagonist, you know the antagonist, you know the climax. In other words, you can, like a detective, you can kind of unspool those. You can extrapolate them from that, and then you can bring this Frankenstein thing to life. And I know that if I look back over the books that I've written, and I'm sure if Neil Young were here and he were to look back over his albums or Bruce Springsteen or anybody like that, each one was an incremental step forward in the evolution of their soul or their creative soul. And I'm sure that Neil Young could look back and say, you know, comes a time or harvest or whatever the hell, they. That was a moment for him where he was dealing with a divorce or something from a previous life or who. Who knows what. Bob Dylan's probably the greatest example of that, because his albums are so much like that. You can really see him working out stuff in his evolution so, you know, Tim, I don't know if that made any sense, but that's kind of the answer for a theme.

Even though you don't know what it is, it'll work.

What is the theme of Gates of Fire?

The theme of Gates of Fire is about. It's an exploration of the nature of courage because those 300 Spartans gave their lives.

And they knew they were giving their lives. It's one thing to fight in a war and die. It's another thing to send your allies back to safety while you go forward knowing you're going to die for a greater cause. So it's sort of the same theme as Casablanca. It's better to sacrifice yourself for the good of the group than to selfishly, you know, cling to life or cling to anything. And that's why in Gates of Fire, you have the two diametrically opposed kings, Leonidas and Xerxes. And the one is the bad king and the one is the good king, the one who sacrifices his life for the good of all, and the other one who just wants more, more, more, more, more for himself.

And so is theme the thing that resonates with the reader? Like, is that why you're really reading your story?

Yes. Now, obviously, a great story has great characters, and, you know, we're rooting for Rocky or we're rooting for Rudy or whatever. But, you know, there's a guy I know who's been a struggling writer for a long time, and he's incredibly prolific. He just bangs out kind of one thing after another with interesting kind of hooks to them. But he has had practically no success. And I'm convinced the reason is that a lot of his stories are really about nothing. They're just a hook and nothing after that. In other words, there's no real theme. Theme is what the reader experiences or the moviegoer experiences on an unconscious level. That's what pulls them through, even though they couldn't say it. If you asked them and grilled them and hung them by their thumbs, they couldn't tell you. But that's why they're being hooked. What the story's about, Sean, just to.

Go off on that a little bit is my thinking, is that theme is another. Another way of saying universal truth.

The reason why I say that is that we as human beings change our behavior based on stories. So Gates of Fire is a story not only about courage, it's about understanding that the self is best expressed in a larger community of other selves. So in order for us to truly understand that, and I think that's a universal truth. There's no better feeling than being a member of a football team, win or lose, being a husband or a wife in a magical moment together. When you have a child, being a child in a family, you feel larger than yourself when you are among simpatico people. This is why people like to come together. So one of the reasons why I think Gates of Fire is such a wonderful story is that it supports that universal truth that we all truly believe. And one of the things about men now, this is something that Steve probably had. You know, there's no way he's thinking of this when he's writing the book. And this is the magic of the muse and this is the magic of the unconscious. He's writing the story because he wants to tell that climactic moment when those guys fought in the battle. But underneath that is the universal truth that love and being larger than something, than purely yourself is more important than selfish acquisition of goods and services or whatever. So men today, they have a difficult time tapping into that universal truth. So this is why Gates of Fire is such a wonderful story for not only men, but women, but primarily men, because you don't really get to think of that thing all that often. So when a great story like Gates of Fire, it reaffirms a universal truth to the reader and the viewer. If it's a movie and it makes you feel good about being alive.

I got a question for you, Sean. It's like, Tim, like you said, I'm right on my Writing Wednesday's blog right now. I mean, I think the last eight weeks have been all about theme and I've got like another five of them stacked up and there's more after that. And yet I can tell just from the comments coming in on the blog that people are sort of getting it, but they're not getting it. And I know talking to my friend that I just telling you about that I get books, you know, can't quite really hit that. As I try to tell him about theme, I could tell he just doesn't get it. Why do you think it's so hard? It's like people have a blind spot to this, you know, they're.

It is true.

What do you. I mean, as an editor, I mean, Tim, the thing about working with Sean, which has been so great a lot of times, what I'll write a book, like I. We were saying before, I don't even know what it's about. And then Sean is my editor, he tells me what it's about. And I mean, literally, he like, actually write a memo saying, what this book is about is this. And it'll be like three or four paragraphs, and I'll go, holy shit. That's what the book is about.

So, I mean, it's the editor's job in many ways, isn't it, to tell. Talk about that a little bit.

Well, stories are so wonderful because they're a way around dealing with your internal shit in that. There's a great book that I read, and I write about it in Story Grid and on Steve's site a lot. It's called the Examined Life. And it was written by a psychotherapist who was writing about some of the stories from his patients and how, being a psychotherapist, he could look at these people and they would tell them these deep stories about themselves. And he would know immediately, well, that's about the fact that you were abandoned as a child. So his point in the theme of his book is about, you need, as a human being, let alone an artist, but especially an artist, a writer, a filmmaker, whoever, a painter. You need to examine yourself, and you need to examine the stories that drive you to certain behaviors. And the more you do that, the more you will identify the themes that are often always surfacing in your own life. And so when Steve says the muse gives you these certain, you know, white whales that you are compelled to bring Frankenstein onto the table and bring life to. That is your internal engine, soul, whatever that is saying, hey, this is something you need to take a look at. And I tell you, if you put 80,000 words down and you have a general understanding of what you're going after, you're going to come to a deeper truth. So the beauty of understanding story and craft is that there are these great genres that already have built in themes. And one of the great things to do is to start with a genre that is attractive to you. So say you're interested in writing mysteries or crime stories. What's a crime story about? It's about justice. And that's primarily the theme of every mystery and crime story. Will the perpetrator be caught or will they get away with it? Will justice be served? And if justice is not served, how deep on the negative spectrum is it going to go? Will it become a tyranny? So if you are attracted to that kind of story, start there and literally do the Paddy Chayefsky thing of saying, if justice is served, the world will be okay. That's your thing. That's a pretty good thing. Love conquers all start with that. You don't have to plumb the depths of your soul immediately. But I think this is a good guiding principle, and at least you're going to have one universal theme running throughout your story that you can play off of, and it will get deeper the deeper you write.

But let me ask you this. Why is it so hard for people to see the theme in their story or even to grasp the idea of theme, period? It seems like they want magic, Steve.

They want magic.

No, I.

See.

I feel like it's. Remember that toy that it's like this. You grab it and it slips out of your hand. And, like, the more you can hold it, but if you squeeze it, it, like, slides out of your hand. Oh, right. You know what I'm talking about.

Super glue globber or something.

Yeah. And it's like this, like, loop thing that has juice in it, and you grab it and it slips. They're always at Cracker Barrel. And so I feel like it's that kind of thing where. Because there's this great podcast with Patrick Rothfuss, who wrote the Name of the Wind, and then this guy named Max Temke. And Max tried to say what his book was about, what Pat's book was about, and he came up with this whole theme of his own. But there's 10 different themes in that book that you could extract based on what you're bringing to the page. You know, I was reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and she said she was at this book signing for Eat, Pray, Love, and somebody came up to her and talked about how Elizabeth Gilbert sharing her story of being beat by her husband gave her the courage to leave her abusive husband. But the thing was, that was never in Eat, Pray, Love. Like, she never even implied that she had ever, like, her husband had ever laid a hand on her. And so what it is, is that such a squishy thing, because I may read Gates of Fire and get encouraged to be more courageous as a man, but somebody else may read it and realize they need to do more sacrificial things and, like, you know, give of them, you know, like, no matter how. And I feel like the more you try to grab it, the more it's just going to slip right out of your hand, because it's always going to be a little squishy, for lack of a better word, since I'm a writer now, apparently.

Well, I think that's valid. But I also think, and Steve correct me, you need just have one. You need to have your own as a Writer guiding, sort of North Star. And that's what the theme and the universal truth of the story that you're trying to express. Other people, yes, they bring their own stuff to your story, and they can take things out of it that you didn't necessarily put in at the start. But the problem is when people refuse to acknowledge that a theme or a controlling idea is important. So you can either fly by blindness and hope that a theme emerges as you're writing your book. But usually what happens is you'll write 1500 pages. I think Steve wrote something about this on the site today. So you write 1500 pages and you've got something in there, but it's gonna. You're gonna have to cut 700 pages to get it down to what it's really the core focus of what the book really is about to you. So the specificity to the writer becomes the universality to the audience.

See, I like that idea of a controlling. Like calling it a controlling. What do you call it? Controlling idea.

Controlling idea from Margaret.

Because then what I'm starting to get at with my own writing is it helps me make decisions about what happens next. So if I have this, I'm going to make some assumptions with Gates of Fire, you know, so if there's this controlling idea about what true courage is, when it comes time for his characters to make a decision, it becomes very clear what decision they're going to make because of this controlling idea. It says from the beginning they have to go this direction because that's what the book's all about.

Exactly. It's like the actual. Like the controlling idea in Gates of Fire was one character. The protagonist, Dionikis, through the whole book, is always troubled by this idea of. He knows what fear is, but he doesn't understand what the opposite of fear is. How do you overcome it? And then finally, in the end, you know, the sort of. The answer is the opposite of fear is love. And in this case, meaning love for your fellow warriors in that phalanx where everybody has to kind of stay together. And that having that controlling idea determines who the antagonist is, the Persians, in this case, and how for them, they don't have that love, and their king doesn't have that love. And so that knowing that theme guides you controls you, the controlling idea, all the way through the story. And the weird thing, Tim, is that I think anybody that's hooked, any writer that's hooked by a story, the theme is in there. They don't have to put it in there. It's there already. The muse, the unconscious has put it in there because you wouldn't be hooked by it if it didn't have some meaning to you on some deep level. So in a way, the writer's sort of like a detective, you know, where you. You sort of spell out your story. Well, I've got an orphan and, you know, she falls into the ocean and a whale swallows her, and she winds up in Southampton and becomes, you know, the wife of Brian Grazer and, you know. Which is a great story. Don't steal that, Tim. I'm working on it. But if you sort of put that on the table like Frankenstein or thinking of it like a dream, what does it mean as a dream? The theme is in there. You know, it's like the X Files. The truth is out there. It's just a matter of sort of digging. And once you've got it, then you have the key to the whole thing.

So I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about becoming a successful writer. And, you know.

Oh, that.

Yeah. It's just a small topic. We have 20 minutes left. We should be able to cover that here. You know, when I look at your path, it's easy because I was like, man, his first book, and it's the Legend of Bagger Vance. But of course, you have this. You have screenwriting, you have ad writing, you have all this stuff in your history that led up to that moment. Me working with Sean through the story grid and all of this stuff is basically me trying to find as many shortcuts as possible to success, or I could say, avoid as many pitfalls and speed bumps that most people kind of get stuck on. And so if you were talking to a writer that's just getting started and, you know, they're trying to write their first novel or they're trying to lay out their first book, and they have this dream of becoming a success, whatever that is. And, you know, maybe they've kind of worked through some of the initial stuff, like, yes, I know. You know, I got to stick with it for a while. I know my first book isn't going to be amazing, but I want to do this and be successful. What are the kind of top two or three things where you're like, well, here's the things not to do, or here's the things you got to focus on and don't get distracted by these other things. When I read Just again, the title of the book, it just. It seems so daunting. And what I've seen in my working with writers and in my own writing is there's so many things for me to get distracted by that keep me from the goal. So what do you tell writers as they're just getting started to kind of keep them out of those common pitfalls that really undercuts their success?

Well, that's a great question, Jim. Here's my answer to that. The thing that people overlook when they want it. You know, when somebody says, well, I want to be a successful writer, the question is, to me, how bad do you want it? Are you willing to sacrifice basically everything else in your life to have that? Because that's what it's going to take. And.

Well, okay, see, I got to stop you right there. I'm going to stop there because most people's answer should be no. Like, I'm not going to sacrifice my marriage, my kids, you know, making sure my mortgage gets paid. Like, I'm not going to sacrifice everything to be a writer. I feel like what you just said is one of those kind of bs. Sorry, I can't believe I just said that to you. Anyway, like, it's like this because that's the common. That's the common thing that gets said. And I'm like, that's not true. Because you have say this to you.

Tim, I beg to differ with you. Think about Henry Miller, think about Mark Twain, think about Ernest Hemingway, Think about Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, anybody. Now, obviously, people have marriages and they have happily marriages and they, you know, they've managed to. They live their lives and stuff like that. But if you're going to really succeed at something, at anything, it's a heart and soul kind of a scenario. And it's not something that can be done by the numbers. Let me tell you a small story here. I have a friend, his name is Hermes Melissanides. He won the gold medal for Greece in gymnastics in the Atlanta Games. And when he was eight years old in Greece, he saw gymnastics on TV for the first time. And he went straight to his parents and he said, I want to do that. This is what I want to do with my life. And I want you to, you know, get me into a class and sponsor me. Da, da, da. His parents, he came from a family of doctors, and his, you know, his mom was a doctor, his dad was a doctor. So they said, no way you're going to waste your life in this stupid thing wearing shorts and flopping around in your gym. You're going to be a doctor. So he went on a hunger strike. And for four days he didn't eat. And finally his parents caved in. And actually, the interesting version is the true story. He said that, okay, we'll let you go to gymnastics, but you have to promise you'll become a doctor too. And he said, okay, I'll do that. And he did. He became a doctor and a gold medalist. But that, you know, the concept of a daemon, of some inheriting spirit that we were born with, that was Hermes's daemon. When he saw that gymnastics thing, he said, that wasn't even him talking. That was this thing inside him saying, I want to be a gymnast. And you read stories of people, actors, you know, they see, you know, Olivier or whatever, they decide. Dustin Hoffman decides, that's it. I'm gonna be an actor. I don't care what you know. And so I would say, you know, there are a million ways you can learn to be a writer. You can study this, you can learn A, B, C, whatever it is. But the bottom line is, do you have a daemon in there that's driving you? Because the shit you're gonna have to put up with is unbelievable. And nobody's gonna. Gonna make it. I mean, I look at. Look at somebody, like, this is probably a bad example, but Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump or one of these people, how badly do they want. Who else would put up with that stuff? You know? But I digress.

Wanted. Tim. I'm sorry.

You do have. So this month is 10 years since I quit my job to start my own business. And I did it two months after my first son was born. And I had no business doing it. But I wanted it. But I put parameters on it. I promised my wife every day I'd come home at 5 and have dinner with the family. And when my dad would say, you need to put in more hours, I would say things like, I just need to get better at working the hours I'm working. And so I worry that there's this pressure on it, that I have to sacrifice everything in my life to be successful at this thing. And what I think, like, yes, you got to sacrifice, like, watching tv, you got to sacrifice sleep. But, like, this idea that you've got to want it more than being married, that you've got to want it more than being a good father. Like, I just don't. I don't buy it.

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that in the time that you're doing it, that you're a pro. The time. Those hours of the day.

Yeah.

Then you gotta really be there.

Right.

Okay.

And. And like a dog with a. You Know, a junkyard dog. So it sounds like you're doing it right to me, Tim.

Well, that's just. We'd have to go back and replay what you said. But I just. I get nervous when. Because that's kind of the common thing that gets said is like, you gotta want it more than anything.

Can I just make a distinction here? Because I think I. I can see both Steve's point of view and your point of view. And I think what Steve is talking about isn't the external life. Meaning he's not saying that you cannot be a good father, you cannot be a good mother, you cannot have a job. I mean. But what he's saying is that your internal commitment must be absolute. And the internal commitment is the thing that most of us really have the problems with. And the internal commitment to be a writer or an artist requires that you give up certain things that the culture and your parents and everybody around you is striving for. So if you're a writer, the notion of ever being able to control whether or not your book is a bestseller, you have to give that up. You have to give up your dreams of being Stephen King. Stephen King doesn't dream of being Stephen King, because Stephen King is a writer. He doesn't sit around thinking about all the things that he has because he's a successful writer, nor does Steve. What they do is they're committed to their art in such a way that they get their ass in a chair every single day, and they give themselves to their craft full bore without any distractions. Now, I've witnessed the way you deal with your work, Tim, and it's very similar. You turn off your email and you do your work when you have to do your work. This is the kind of commitment we're talking about. It's an internal commitment that will not allow texting or social networking or, oh, I'm just going to go get a grapefruit out of the kitchen, you know, so that I'll have some citrus while I'm working. No, it means doing your work with a very clear intention every single day. Knowing that resistance is out there bites you in the ass every chance it gets.

Let me ask you this, Charlie, as an editor, and I know that hundreds of writers have come to you or pitched you stuff or had you read stuff, and can you tell almost by looking them in the eye whether they're going to succeed or not?

No.

Ah, no.

Because people are wonderful actors. Think of the masks that we wear every single day. And some people I have wasted, not wasted But I've worked with a lot of people who have been tremendously disappointing because I see. It's like sort of seeing a child and knowing that they're just a wonderful presence and that they would be a wonderful teacher or a great skier or seeing a greatly talented athlete when they're four years old. It's like seeing Tiger woods on the Mike Douglas show.

Yeah, right.

You know, when he was 4, he was hitting drives of 150 yards. And you know that. You know that's. He's got his daemon. It's clear. So when you see that in somebody and you see that they've got the daemon inside, they have it. And then they just. Resistance destroys them. And they come up with excuses and they say, I don't work that way. And what you're saying is bullshit. And.

No, you the editor. Yeah.

As I'm advising them, saying the things that I say over and over again.

Find out what the theme is.

Right, right. And I, you know, so, no, you can't tell by looking at somebody. That's why we need to help everybody. Because you don't know. Tomorrow, that guy who's a pain in the ass, he might say, what happened to you? You know, in New York in the 1970s, one day you said, oh, my gosh, okay, Now I know I've got to clean up my shit and I've got to do my work and I got to stop worrying and sabotaging myself. So that's the thing. You've got to allow for people to change. And so, no, you never know that somebody is great.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Story Grid podcast. For everything Storygrid related, you can see that@storygrid.com if you want to see any past episodes or show notes for this podcast, you can see that@storygrid.com podcast and then, of course, you're going to want to pick up your copy of Steven Pressfield's new book Nobody Wants to Read.

You'd shit.

You can buy that@blackirishbooks.com or of course, you can buy that@Amazon.com as well. So make sure you go and pick up a copy of that book. I know you're going to love it. As always, thanks for sharing the show with your friends, rating it on itunes. It means a lot. And we will be back next week with Part two with Steven Pressfield. We'll see you then.