​​Steven Pressfield

27:05As soon as it becomes formulaic, there's no more that feeling of the epiphany. It's just painting in between the numbers. And yet, the opposite side of that is if we think of a genre like film noir or western or love story, whatever, that has certain beats and obligatory scenes that you have to have, if a writer or a director or whatever can come up with really great creative ways of hitting those beats so the audience doesn't even really know it. Then you got something really cool, I think. I think also if you could subvert a genre by combining it with another genre that doesn't necessarily use it.

27:42It's like, you're constantly subverting something that, like, this is the way these people do it. And this is the way these people do it. But what's it like? If it takes elements of this group, elements of this group, or we add a Caribbean rhythm to a rock song, what does that do? Just finding new combinations. Yeah, what I wanted to ask you was, if you had to describe your job, your vocation, how would you describe it? What is it that you do? I would say it's different for different artists I work with. In general, it's supporting the artist through the project. Sometimes it's more creative where I'm offering musical ideas or sometimes it's more psychological in terms of giving them the support they need to do their best work.

28:42Sometimes it's helping them remove the outside voices, you know, the record company who says it has to be due on this date when the artist's like, but if it's due by that date, it won't be as good as it could be. And the artist is one must live with it forever. And the record company moves on to the next one. So helping the artist own the process and not let the trivialities of business undermine the creative process. That's a big part of it. Yeah. So you're a mentor in one sense, right? Or you're also a protector, right? You create an environment in which, I mean, they always say about movie directors that one of the great things that they do for their actors is create a safe space where the actor feels like I can really go for it.

29:36Absolutely. And is that that's probably a big part of what you do as well? And to create a space where the artist feels comfortable being their most vulnerable because that's where the magic happens. Yeah. Bearing your soul. Uh -huh. Yeah. It's hard to do. And there must be moments when the musicians, the artists say to you, you said, okay, to do this trick, I'm really scared. Do they do that? And you somehow give them permission? So somehow the permission, it becomes clear. It's implicit in the way that things happen. There's no judgment. There'll be helpful criticism to get us where we need to go, but it's never rooted in judgment.

30:22Mm -hmm. In any kind of writing, screenwriting or novel writing or whatever, there's that moment when you sort of deliver your draft to somebody that's going to pass a judgment on it, right? It may be a very helpful judgment. You know, it could be your editor that's really going to tell you, which I mentioned is what you do primarily. And that's a really fraught moment for the writer. There's a lot of times even with, you know, I know I go into a state of shock when I get those, you know, that 12 -page memo. You know, when you do that, when you have to say to, you know, to a band or whatever, this isn't working or do you have a way that you do that?

31:04Do you do it in a really general way? Is it different each time? I would say it's different each time. The goal is to make the work not personal. So you write a book and if I talk about the book, Strengths and Weaknesses, I'm not talking about your strengths and weaknesses. Stevens. Mm -hmm. There's this thing outside of ourselves. Mm -hmm. And we're a team together to make this thing outside of ourselves the best it could be. Do you ever verbalize that directly to the people that you're working with or is it just implicit? I feel like it's mostly implicit, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has come up sometime.

31:48I remember one time I was sitting with an artist who played me, but first time I met an artist, very successful artist. And he's played me all the songs and I made all my notes and then I read them all the notes. And he looked at me like with this stunned look on his face, he's like, have you ever talked to an artist like this before? And I said, I do this every day. What do you mean? Uh -huh. And he's like, no one's ever talked to me like this. In other words, so straight. Yes, just delivering the truth. Yeah. But it was never your no good. It's the second verse lyrics might not be as good as the first verse lyrics.

32:22The bridge is the weakest part of the song. Maybe we can make that better. Uh -huh. And I'm not even saying, I'm right. Uh -huh. I'm saying, this is what I see. Uh -huh. And then we talk about it. How did you get to the place where you are now, Rook? Or you can be that person. I mean, did you start out in the music business wanting to do that? Or did it just kind of evolve? It just happened. I didn't know that it was a job. I always had the ability to know what I liked. I could articulate. It's never a debate. It's like we're working together to get to the best goal. So an example that happens all the time in the studio is a suggestion that's made to me that sounds terrible.

33:09And I say, okay, let's hear what that sounds like. And then it's demonstrated. And it was incredible. It happens to me all the time. Uh -huh. You're wrong. I'm wrong in other words. I'm wrong in my head. Uh -huh. But I don't allow what's in my head to impact anything. All that matters is what's outside of us. Uh -huh. We don't argue over the fear I guess. Which I see all the time. Band's getting the fights. Band's break up over theoretical argument. It's a form of resistance. Yeah. It's exactly what it is. It's exactly what it is. Let's take all the stories out of it. Let's demonstrate it. And then talk about what was demonstrated.

33:50Uh -huh. So as you sort of evolved into what you're doing now, I sort of imagined that maybe you opened your mouth a few times in a situation when you were young, sprouted doing this. And after a session, somebody said, I want to hear what this guy says. You know, you guys shut up. What does Rick say? Is that sort of how it kind of happened? It happened two different ways. Because earlier in my career, right when I was starting, I was more dictatorial. Because I knew what I knew. But then I thought, because I know this, this is the way it is. Uh -huh. Uh -huh. Now, I knew a way, and it was successful and people liked it.

34:30But it wasn't as collaborative. And then very quickly, I realized that it was on me to do everything. I couldn't do that much. But when you're working with really talented people and collaborating together to make the best thing you can make, you can make much more beautiful things and many more beautiful things. Now I realize I'm open, and I really listen, and I have no ego about whether it's the artist's idea, my idea, the second engineer, a person visiting, makes a comment, we'll try anything, and if what comes out of the speakers is better, that wins always, not having any sense of ownership over it.

35:14I mean, that's a great gift that you must have genetically or something, because very few people can let go of their ego or the idea of controlling something even a little bit. I mean, that's a great thing. I'm trying to think of any instances in my life where I've experienced that, and it's really hard to think of any. What's fun about it is if I see a picture a certain way, and then a collaborator tells me a picture that's different than my picture. Instead of rejecting that picture, I think about, what is it about this picture, the person is suggesting? And it's harder to solve their puzzle instead of the puzzle I already solved for myself.

36:01So if I hear something, I might have an internal puzzle of like, okay, this is how I would do it. And then when I hear how they would do it, it's like, well, I wouldn't do it anything like that. That's a real puzzle, because it's not following my default path. Yeah, yeah. That's a real gift that you've got. I mean, I think when people ask me sometimes for help in writing, I'm no good at that. And the reason is that I would sort of tell them, well, this is how I would do it. And that's the last thing they need to know. And people always react badly to that, and they should. And then finally, I always wind up backing up and say, you're lucky enough to just do it the way you want to do it.

36:40But I don't have that gift that you have. Well, I remember about four years ago going out to dinner with you and asking you to help me finish the book, because I felt like I was at an impasse, and you refused, but you were great. And you gave me confidence to continue, but refused to participate. Let me say I declined to do the right thing. You could pick your words. Yeah. But it was... But I could see that this was your thing. Absolutely. No, I wanted to encourage you to do it. And you did, and you did. Yeah. But I was at an interesting point in the process where all of the material that's in the book was out of me.

37:15There were a thousand pages of all of these ideas and more. So how do we take these madman ramblings and turn it into something that someone can... And I got to say, you did a fantastic job. You know, I have Neil Strauss to help you. I don't know what the participation that was, but you guys did a great job. And beyond that, it's a really well -written book, above and beyond the structure, which was hard enough. And the concept and the ideas. It's perfectly written in the right tone of voice, just long enough, not an extra word in there. So, you know, I take my hat off to you. Thank you. You did it.

37:51And we're hard to have every word be meaningful. And I can see it. Every word to be toneally right, as well as accurate. Yeah. Yeah. So there could have been a version of a sentence that said the same thing, just as clearly, but didn't have the same emotional impact. And a lot of time was put into, is this the way to say it, where you feel it, as opposed to just telling, explaining this way of machine works? And there are a lot of books on creativity that 99 .99 % of them don't do that. They're written that other way. And you know, after like 12 pages you go, forget this. It's funny when I started this project eight years ago, working on the book, there were not books about creativity.

38:42There was one, there was Wyletharps book, it was the only one I could find at that on creativity. Yeah, which was a great book. Great book. But in the wake of working on it, all these creativity books started coming out. And as it was happening, I was thinking, is it taking too long, missing the window? Clearly, clearly there's a hunger for books like this because look at all these books coming out, on a subject where before there was only one. But when I met with you four years ago, I had this feeling of like the contents out of me, I don't know how to present it. I feel like I'm supposed to be working on the next thing.

39:19Like I'm off schedule, not my schedule, the universe is visible. Now it proved not to be the case. But that's what it felt like in me was like, it's taking too long. Now I'm at that stage where all the ideas are here, this shouldn't be as hard as it is. Sometimes that's the easiest part of all, right? It's to get the ideas out. Apparently, how do you put them together is the real hard part. Apparently so. How is your relationship changed to your work over the course of your life? I tried to be a writer to write from like 1967 to 1995. And although I did a few things that I thought were good, it never was really coming from the place it had to come from, which is from another dimension of reality.

40:16And at some point, the book was the Legend of Bag of Vance. That was the turning point for me. The stuff that I started writing was coming from that place that it's supposed to come from. And it's been that way ever since. So that was a radical change. Even though I could never have predicted what those books were, or the tone of voice that they were in, or the subject matter. And I can't really describe what that change was exactly. The only thing I can say is I think it came at the end of being my head into the wall, endlessly, and finally something happened, something changed, I don't know what.

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42:32This is a very hypothetical question. Do you think there was a way that if you knew something different than you knew, that that could have happened to you. I don't think it could have. Because I think, and I don't even know why I'm saying that. But I think it's because the change happened on some other level. Unconscious soul level. Nobody could have given me a hack or a tip or shown me anything. Even if I had met somebody like you that had been, you know, gave me a safe place and encouraged me, I still don't know. I don't know why I say that. That's just my instinct. I think it just happened on another level.

43:15Is it all about the relationship you have with yourself? Was there some element of giving up? Yes, absolutely. That allowed Aggregates to have. Absolutely. That's what I would say. That was the whole thing. You gave up on something. Yeah, and I'm not even sure what, but definitely that was what happened. Like Zen in the Art of Artry where he learned to let go of the arrow at the right time. Yeah, you stopped trying and did it. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah, within it, within reason. When Aggregates became successful, first of all, did it get successful right away out of the box all at once? Yes, right away.

43:57After 30 years of nothing, you have to be happy to happen again. When you found that out, tell me what happened inside of you. That's a great question, Rick. And by the way, the level of success was really tiny. I mean, it's like the advance was 25 ,000. I'd spent it like two seconds, you know. But in one sense, I felt like my life is worthwhile now. I felt like I've sort of... You've found your purpose. I've tried. I've been something I've been trying to do forever. If I died tomorrow, I won't be ashamed of myself, you know. Whereas I certainly felt before that I would be ashamed of myself. Or that I hadn't lived up to what I hoped I could do.

44:40That was a big confidence builder in that sense. I thought, finally I did something and I'm proud of, you know. And the other thing was that speaking of source, that this thing came out of nowhere and seized me. And so I really felt like I didn't even write this book, you know. It's like I've read that Bob Dylan doesn't even remember writing good songs. It was sort of like that, you know. So that gave me a whole other humility on the one hand, but also a real sense of optimism because I thought, if this happened once, maybe it can happen again, and I'll just roll it, you know. And just see what happens.

45:20Yeah, that was a big turning point. When the success happened in terms of outwardly people liking the book and it's selling, who did you tell? I'm trying to think if my mom was even alive then I know my dad wasn't. Yeah. I probably told her. But unfortunately she was in a kind of a mental state that wasn't so good for that. But who did I tell? Mostly myself, I guess, you know. It's a question I asked because the instinct is to tell your parents. Yeah, I'm not the bum you thought I was. You know, that's got to think. I don't know, like my version of my parents never thought of me as a bum. But clearly when something good would happen, they would care much more about it than I would.

46:07Like they reveled in my success much more than I did always. It was sort of different with my family, which is really my name because it's extended family, you know. Where it was like they sort of never got it, you know. It was like that story about David Geffen's mom that he talks about in that documentary where he was producing this thing at the Hollywood Bowl with Johnny Mitchell. And she asked him, what do you do for these people? He said, well, I managed them. I'm their manager and she said, you know. There's a story about Jerry Lewis, who was always looking for his father's appreciation.

46:50And he was invited to do a one man performance for the Queen of England. So he invites his dad, who was a failed comedian. And the dads in the audience and Jerry kills at the performance. The Queen of England gives a misunderstanding ovation. And they go backstage after and he sees his dad and he's like, Dad, what do you think of that? And his dad said, you still haven't got it. Wow, why isn't it about human nature that your own father, you know. It's a wild story. It's just, I guess in some way, you can't accept your own son doing something great. Yeah. I ask you the question because the first instinct that I had was tell my parents.

47:38And since my parents have passed, it's a weird feeling when something good happens. I don't know who to give it to. Or who to tell, it's weird to congratulate yourself. It's okay with your parents, but anyone else seems kind of weird. I don't know if I agree with that. Tell me. I think that if you believe in the muse, as I believe in the muse, and let's say just my story of a bag of ants, the muse gave me the book, wrote it for me, I just did it. So the communication is kind of between me and her. And I say, thank you. Yes. I'm your servant. Thank you for, you know, whatever. And please don't leave me.

48:22You know, but I think that's a really great private moment. I think that it's okay to have these moments I think completely inside your own self. You don't share with anybody. Or you could, but they can never really appreciate it. I mean, you know, nice work, Rick. You know, a good job. I'm happy for you, but they can't really appreciate it. Because again, it's such a war that this moment that you might have with you, another dimension of reality, you got to hang onto that like plutonium, you know, rocket fuel, because you're going to need it. Would you describe that conversation as a prayer? My version is a prayer.

48:58Yes. It's a conversation, I guess. Or it's just not even that. It's just a moment of, you know, you would sort of, for me, like, get down on one knee, bow your head, and just, you know, express gratitude. Yeah. You started as a copywriter? I did. Tell me about that world. My first job out of college was like actually as an office boy at Grey advertising in New York City. And I just wanted to be an advertising man, like Harry Grant in the movies, just to come up with ideas. I just thought, let me do something, and there would be like a great Alka Selcester commercial that kind of thing. And I was really no good at it at all.

49:37I never got anywhere. I was, you know, it was so hard. I couldn't really do it, but it was, it was great training in a lot of ways to just, because again, it was sort of, you had to come up with ideas on demand. So then you sort of thrown into that area, but where do ideas come from? Because I had never thought about that before. They never teach in that school, maybe in art school. So that was, that's really been sort of the puzzle of my entire life. And what I was just talking about about them using bagger bands was sort of the answer. And that idea makes you view the whole universe in a whole different way than anybody ever taught you.

50:16And in fact, let me ask you, what is your model of the universe? If you know what I mean, how does it work? Where are we humans? Where are these other things? How did they all come together? I'll try my best to answer. I don't know that I can because I don't think about it in the holistic way. It's more case by case. Uh -huh. Okay, that's good enough. But I'll say I feel like our part of it is intention and a willingness to do whatever it takes to do our best, a real commitment to the work. Whatever that work is, it doesn't happen because you're remarkably talented and it just falls out of you.

51:05Yes, sometimes it just falls out of you, but you can't depend on it falling out of you. And that it's always hard work. And if you're not working hard, it won't fall out of you. When the universe is conspiring on your behalf, you have to pick it up because it's not screaming at you. It's not whispering. It's maybe whispering. So then you believe that the universe, whatever that is, has an intentionality. Yes. And it's recruiting you and me. Yeah. And everybody else. If you're putting whoever, the examples I give in the book, is when art movements happen, where they don't happen, one artist starts the movement and there are followers.

51:53Yeah. We see the same types of things spring up all over the world. And the ones who are the best artists are the ones with the best antenna to pick up this information. So there's a lot of work that we can do to prepare ourselves to allow it to come. So what you're kind of talking about right now is sort of from the human point of view, from the artist point of view down here on this level. Yes. But what I really want to ask you is, what does that say about the universe, whatever it is up there? Where is the timetable at all of a sudden Cubism and everything else is going to come out here? Is there an intentionality?

52:33I'm looking for the model. Yeah. Because like when you and I were growing up, I'm sure we thought God is dead. The materialism is everything. There's no such thing as another dimension. Or other dimensions. But you and I, in our evolution, we go, fuck yeah, there are other dimensions. And that's our whole life. So I'm just trying to say, what's the greater model in your view? Is it a really positive thing that the universe has good things in mind and we're co -doing it? I believe the intention is positive. It feels positive. It feels positive to me too. And I know it brings a sense of joy. Even if the material that I'm working on is tragic or horrifying.

53:25Yeah. When you see the good version of the information, there's a feeling of joy. And not because of what the content is saying, but because the way it's coming and how clear it is and how beautiful a picture this is, the reality in it, the sense of humanity in it, we get to feel that. It feels good. We're alive. Okay, I'll take that as an answer. And the other thing is really as beauty. Whatever it is, no matter how shitty the content is, what we deliver, what artists deliver, has got to be beautiful one way or another. Words, pictures, music, whatever. And even, I don't know what that means.

54:14No, but even presenting something ugly has to be done in a beautiful way. Otherwise, it's just ugly. It's just ugly. It doesn't have the resonance of holding our attention. We are drawn to beautiful things. I'm not sure why, but what the purpose of that is, but it's true, certainly true. What are some of the things you've quit doing? I know how to be a social person. Social media or social life. I mean, the idea of going to a party and sitting there and yacking over nothing was something that I've developed. You have to shoot me to get me to do that. So, that's one thing for sure. Certainly, any of those sort of trivial ego pursuits, I've tried to, you know, just go, I don't have time for them.

55:11Between doing work, doing whatever, you know, personal thing, family stuff, and arresting, recovering. That's pretty much, you know, I feel like I have a limited amount of time. I'm trying to serve the goddess, and I'm trying to narrow it down to that. That's a good question. Do you feel like a soldier? Yes, I do. I mean, if you ask me what my profession was, I would say I'm a servant of the muse, and I'll go where she tells me to go. Now, that might be a soldier, might be a fight, or I might be an ambassador of peace, you know, or a flute playing, you know, minstrel or something like that. You're allowing yourself to be directed.

55:54Yeah, exactly. Whatever she tells me to do, I do. Yeah. How amorphous is she to you? Not too amorphous. Can you see her? No, no. I mean, I have a sort of vague, you know, anthropomorphic concept, but... Does she speak in words? No. But just like you say, my antenna, I'm definitely tuned into the cosmic radio station all the time. And it's funny. I'm not even sure how the communication comes, but it does come. Maybe an idea comes in some sort of crazy floating form that's not words, but you get it, you know? Do you feel like you get confirmation in the process? Like, does something happen along the way?

56:47You have an idea. Maybe you're unsure of it. Do you ever get a sign or a... Not like a bluebird landing there and I go, oh, that must be, you know, not that. Or a dolphin coming out of it. No, but I will have moments where it is a confirmation, like, oh, you're on the right track. Or dreams. I will have dreams that will tell me that, you know? Like in my dreams, we get into really the weeds here, but for me, water, particularly like a river that's flowing or spring coming out of a mountainside, or rain or something like that, is a sign of creativity for me. And whenever I have dreams that has that in, I go, ah, that's a good sign.

57:27It tells me something's happening. I'm not dry. Water's coming out of the mountainside, that kind of thing. So that's kind of a confirmation that I'll get. And sometimes it's really vivid. I mean, it's like a hit you and blow, you know, it's like, you can't miss it.

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59:21The new book is called The Daily Press Field. How did it come about? I've been looking for a long time for a way to kind of bring all my stuff together, in a way that it could really help somebody. And so a 365 -day concept, which I got from Ryan Holiday, who did The Daily Stoic. It sounded like that was a great way to do it because you could start day one at the beginning of a project. And like the first chapter in this book is the chapter heading, his resistance wakes up with me. And it talks about how, in other words, it's from the minute you open your eyes, day one, what are you going to have to deal with if you're writing a novel or whatever project you may have.

1:00:09And so I just thought a 365 -day thing is an ideal way to kind of help somebody, bring all my shit together. And so I wanted to do a book where you could open it to any page and you go, wow, that's exactly what I was hoping I would read today. I wanted to do like the War of Art squared, you know, not a small book, but a big book. Yeah. So that's what The Daily Press feel this. Would you say there are any ideas from, in this book, that are from your fiction work? Yes. And that was another part that I really wanted to do. Like we were talking earlier, you and I, about why do I write books about war or what is the virtues of a warrior or something like that.

1:00:55And so there is a bunch of stuff in here. Again, that applies to an artistic venture. Like I wrote a book a few years ago called The Lion's Gate that was about the Six Day War, the Arab -Israeli War of 1967. And I interviewed a bunch of fighter pilots and things like that, you know. And they talk about, as they were telling me these certain nuggets, I thought, fuck, this is exactly what I'm dealing with in my writers world, my artist world. So I got to use those stories too, and then to turn the corner and make them clear that this is, you know, this is what we need to do in our own internal war of art.

1:01:37I'm going to randomly open the book and say that we get. Let's say something, yeah. Act 2 builds to a midpoint. You want to tell me about that or shall I read it? Go ahead and read it. Okay. There are two halves to a movie script, and the midpoint is the threshold between them. We can talk about the importance of the two act breaks. But to me, the midpoint is as important, especially in the early going, to laying out script's beats. This is Blake Snyder from Save the Cat, page 82. What he states about the movies is equally applicable to novels and dramas, not say nonfiction, including Ted Talks and children's books.

1:02:22And then there's the quote. Ah, and that comes at the middle of this book, because this is sort of talking about if you were writing any one of your books or writing a novel or anything like that, and he uses the Daily Press feel that's kind of a year long 365 day guide. In the middle of your project, the middle of the book, right, the middle of the year, you would be hitting this point of, what the fuck am I doing? Something has to change in my story or in my book that's not necessarily a story. And so this whole week or two weeks that are just about that midpoint and going to detail. This is how it works.

1:03:02This is what happens, so on and so forth. Tell me about how the midpoint fits into a three act framework. You really want to hear the whole thing? I really do. Okay, classic example of a midpoint of a movie is in the Godfather, the first Godfather. You know, there's that scene where Sonny and the family are gathered at Michael Coilion in a chair, and I can almost recite the thing. He says, this is after the dawn has been shot and is in the hospital, and Michael has gone to him. And so lots of the bad guy is kind of reaching out for a meeting. And Michael Coilion says something like this in the room is all of the guys in the, and he's sitting in his father's chair, the Godfather's chair.

1:03:47And he says something like, they want to set up a meeting with me. Have our guys arrange the meeting. He says, now I can't bring a weapon to that meeting, but if Clemenza can figure a way to plan a weapon for me, then I'll kill him both. And at that moment, that is the midpoint of that story. At that moment, up to that moment, I'm going in over the weeds here, Rick. Please. Up until that moment, Michael Coilion, Al Pacino, had been kind of an ancillary figure to the family. If you remember, he's a marine captain. He's brought his sweetheart, who's an American girl, you know, K, played by Diane Keaton, not an Italian girl.

1:04:24He hasn't really been part of the family at all. In fact, the sonny and Frado and the other brothers have protected him. It's like, here you stay out of this. But in this moment, we suddenly realize that this is his story. It's not the Godfather of Marlon Brando. It's the Godfather Al Pacino. And the other point of the midpoint is, the hero chooses a side. And at this point, Michael says, I'm with the family. You know, where he says, if you can plant the weapon, I'll kill him both. And everybody in the scene reacts like they laugh, right? Sonny laughs. So, you know, this is not like in a war where you shoot them 200 feet away.

1:05:02You've got to blow their brains all over you nice Ivy League suit. You know, another example. This is in dances with wolves. The Kevin Costner movie about American Indians, right? And when Kevin Costner starts out, he's at a Civil War U .S. Cavalry Captain Officer. Lieutenant Dunbar. But at some point through the movie, he becomes dances with wolves. He becomes Indian. He chooses sides. There's a moment in there in the midpoint where he goes, I'm no longer with these blue coat white guys. I'm with the tribe. They're my people. You know, when I'm working on a story, I'll ask myself, what is the midpoint of this story?

1:05:46And does the hero choose sides and another thing that comes from Blake Snyder is, the stakes of the movie go way up. The stakes of the story go way up. When Michael Corleone says, then I'll kill him both. You know, he's in it with both feet and the whole thing is going to go really, really deep. And the same thing with dances with wolves when Kevin Costner goes, I'm with the tribe. You know, bad shit's going to happen, but that's the depth of the story. How does that relate to the three acts? Because it's different than three acts. We all are in the middle of the second act. Middle of the second.

1:06:20Middle of the second act. So from then on, so the second act is always about a turning point. It should always have a turning point in the middle, or at least the point where the stakes go up and the main character chooses sides. So at that point, like the stakes elevate, but also we can kind of see, we can see the ending coming now in the sense of, you know, if it's Moby Dick, we know, oh, they're going to meet, they're going to fight to the death, you know? Or if it's dances with wolves, we know, the cavalry's going to catch up. It's going to be the Indians versus the white guys. And some bad shit, you know, it's going to happen.

1:06:58How do you describe what happens in the first act and what happens in the third act? The first act traditionally is like the hook. So what it's really about is, really in the audience, starting a story in a sense that the audience is interested. Oh, I got to see what's going to happen to Captain Jack Sparrow or whoever it is. So it's more important that it's interesting than that it really starts the story. There's a moment in the first act called the Insighting Incident. And that's the moment when, like the story usually starts with what you would call the setup. To give you an example, if everybody remembers the movie Rocky, the first Rocky, if there's kind of the setup, which is Rocky's this kind of ham and egg fighter in Philadelphia, he goes to the Jim where he trains and Mick, the guy owns the gym, has given away his locker.

1:07:51All he's got to hang his stuff on a nail now, right? He's a bum, nobody respects him, he's going nowhere. That's the setup. Then there's a kind of an Insighting Incident, which is the moment when the story starts. And in Rocky, the Insighting Incident is when the heavyweight champ Apollo Creed, the guy he was supposed to fight for the championship, heard himself. So he's got to replace him. He goes through a book of contenders and he sees the Italian stallion. And he says, I'm going to give this chump a shot at the title. So now the movie starts. At the end of the act, when we see, oh, Rocky, this bum is going to get a chance to fight the champion of the world.

1:08:29And theoretically, that really hooks us. So we go, wow, I got to see what's going to happen here. So then the other thing that they say, this I got from Robert McKee, the great screenwriter and story teacher, he says that embedded in the climax is always embedded in the Insighting Incident. And what he means by that is like, when we see Apollo pick Rocky to fight him, we know, oh, act three is going to be them in the ring really doing it. And hopefully that pulls us through the whole story. We go, oh, that sounds great. Or in Star Wars, we know Darth Vader is going to fight it out with Luke, somehow at the end of the story, and we go, oh, great, let's go through this.

1:09:11So act three pays all that stuff off that's being set up in act one. There are also examples where those rules are subverted to create a different feeling. For example, I think of Psycho. Yeah. If you think of the beginning of Psycho, the star of the movie in the first, I don't know, 15 minutes or so, it's taking a shower and gets murdered. Yeah. Is it that soon? It's really early. It's really early. And she's clearly the star of the movie. So anything we think we know about a normal structure is... Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It can be subverted. But it's helpful to know the rules, to know, maybe if I break this rule, it'll have a different kind of an effect.

1:09:58Do you write every day? Maybe six days a week. Pretty much, you know, it's only if I absolutely cannot, you know, because of other obligations or something. I always want to write something. I was going to say, do you always write with a specific purpose? Is it always like, I'm writing because I'm writing a new book and this is for the new book, or do you? Oh, yeah. Sit down to write because that's what you do on the right. No, I'm always working on a project. I wouldn't just write. What is writing Wednesdays? Writing Wednesdays is my blog that my old friend of mine, a publicist, Calliottens, who gave me that idea years ago.

1:10:35And I started it out to do it on a Wednesday, like it would be another chapter from the War of Art that hadn't been written. And so it would always be kind of about the writer's battle, the artist's struggle, the internal struggle. So it's just, you know, it's my Wednesday blog. I only do it once a week. Tell me about commitment. Just like what you've been saying, Rick. I mean, in terms of being an artist or a writer, again, I believe in the muse. The muse is flying overhead. She looks down. She sees you or another musician at the piano, or writing a song, or driving on the freeway and pulling over because they had an idea or something like that.

1:11:20And what she's looking for, what the goddess is looking for, or you would say the universe or source, is this motherfucker committed to me or not? You know, are they dabbling? Are they fucking around? Or are they in this, with both feet, for real life and death? And if they are, then the goddess says, okay, I'm going to give this guy an idea, an idea for a song or whatever it is. So I think it's 100 percent like I have a book that just came out a little while ago called Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be. And what that's about is when I say Put Your Ass, I mean your commitment. If you put your commitment where your dream is, where your heart is, then good things will happen.

1:12:03So that's to me, it's an absolute essential, more important than talent. And it goes hand in hand, obviously, with hard work. If you're committed, you're committed to doing the work. And you're also committed to learning your craft and perfecting your instrument and being a vessel that when lightning strikes, you're able to deliver. It's a beautiful description. I like that description a lot. We need you first get into exercise. I think I've always been into it. You know, I start my day as, you know, like you, with going to the gym or with some kind of physical fitness thing. As a sort of rehearsal and I know Randy Wallace, our friend, does the same thing.

1:12:44He calls it little victories, you know, and a little victory would be, you know, putting in your hour at the gym or whatever it is or in layered Hamilton swimming pool. So I do it as a sort of a rehearsal because it's hard. I don't want to do it. I'm afraid of it. And if I can do it every day, then I feel like I can go home and sit down at the keyboard and I've got some momentum going. So it definitely is a big thing for me. It also seems to really enhance mood. Oh, definitely. I don't like doing it, but I always feel better and more focused. Yeah, absolutely. Did the muse first come to you on Bagger Vance?

1:13:31No, no, I think she experienced the muse. She was with me, but she shifted gears at that point. The first novel that I ever finished that I could never sell, I was living in a little house in Carmel Valley, California. I'd saved money from working and advertising and I had had enough to let go for a couple of years. And I had a friend, a guy named Paul Rink, who was a writer. He was maybe 30 years older than me, 40 years older than me, and he lived down the street. And every morning I would go have coffee with him. He lived in a camper outside of his little house. And he sort of became a mentor to me.

1:14:10And he introduced me to the idea of the muses, which I'd never really known anything about. And what they are, I'm going to wax verbose here. It's Greek mythology. The muses were nine sisters, the daughters of Zeus and Nemasini, which means memory. And each muse was in charge of a certain art. Terpsichor was in charge of dance, Kaliope was in charge of music. And their job was to inspire artists. And the sort of the classic image that we have of the muses, like Beethoven at the piano, and the goddess is kind of whispering in his ear, that kind of thing. So the whole concept of the muses is that on some divine level they know what the next book, album, song is whatever.

1:15:05So if Tom Waits is driving along the freeway, and all of a sudden the song comes into his head, he has to pull over and write it down. That in Greek terms would be, the goddess looked down on him and gave him this thing. So my friend Paul Rink, he typed up for me the invocation of the muse from the start of the Odyssey, of Homer's Odyssey, the TE Lawrence translation, Lawrence of Arabia. And he typed it up for me and I still have it. And it's like that long on a page. And it's the very, very start of the Odyssey. And it's Homer asking the goddess for help. You know, O divine Poise, goddess daughter of Zeus, sustained for me this song, bump it, bump it, bump it, it kind of goes on from that.

1:15:52And so the whole kind of, this idea, I'd never heard this idea before, but this was a mind -blower. I mean, it was an incredible gift of a mentor to a young guy, right? Struggling. Was the idea that you can't command this force? You can't beg for, you can't promise, I'll do, you know. The only thing you can do is invoke it, the invocation of the muse, which is another word for prayer. The only thing you can do is kind of say, goddess, I'm here at your command, I'm just a servant, I'm a craftsman, I'll do the best I can. Please help me. You tell the story, you know what it is. So this was a great gift for Paul to me.

1:16:38That really started me thinking, again, this is back to what we talked before about where do ideas come from? Well, they come from there, you know. And I say that prayer every morning, you know, before I sit down. You know, out loud, you know, just like that. And I really mean it. You see it, standing, sitting, standing. And you put your hands in the back. Sometimes I'll put my hands in my pocket, so I feel like this. But I'm definitely putting my mind in a truly serious state, you know. Like if you were entering a dojo and you bowed to the sensei, that kind of thing. And I really am asking for help.

1:17:12Yes. And the goddess has never let me down. And she just got better as it gave me a little more as we went along. Amazing. Beautiful. But isn't that in a way you're kind of a muse or you're a facilitator of the muse for the musicians that come to you? It's not me. It's not you. But you're helping them access that and creating a safe space where they can, you know, because this to really sort of humble yourself like that. I can imagine certain ego, maniacal, young musicians, my grandma, I gotta do that bullshit, you know. But they have to, you know, if they're gonna get anywhere. When you finished your first novel and threw it away, tell me what was going on inside you that didn't allow you to either complete it or share it.

1:18:06It was for me the first time I ever really encountered resistance with a capital R. And I had no idea what it was. And I was terrified to finish to put something out there. I was so lousy. It didn't know me. I would have even looked at it. But I was terrified to, you know, face the music. And so I, you know, acted out in psychiatric terms. I cheated on my wife. I blew up my marriage. You know, because of, I couldn't get that to the finish of that thing. And so it was, you know, years later when I finally was able to say, oh, fuck, that was, resist. It was my own self sabotage destroying me at that moment to stop me from finishing something and actually going somewhere.

1:18:58Did you ever go back and look at it? No. It was gone. No, it's gone. Yeah, it was nowhere. It was something you had to put in the drawer and never look at it again. I'm thinking about the two lines in the case of leading to the... I was able to do the great. At what point do you know the story? Well, certainly in that case, there was a real historical things that really happened. So you have to think, okay, what is this about? What's the theme? What story do I want to pull out of that? So I mean, I knew that there were going to be the three great battles that he fought. And I guess I just sort of worked through it kind of a...

1:19:43I have a thing where I call a clothesline method where I kind of imagine a clothesline and you hang like pairs of underwear on this clothesline. And maybe there's like 12 of them and those are scenes, right? And I sort of thought, I got a few of them on there and I realized, ah, this is about a certain... This is what it's about. And then I kind of knew where the story had to be, what I was going to... What I could talk about and what we didn't have to talk about. You have key scenes before you might have an outline. Yeah. In fact, I'll tell you one for whatever the point is. Yeah, please, this is worth.

1:20:17And this was the one that sort of split the diamond for me and the thing. Well, there was a real king in India named Poros, POR -US, that Alexander had a great clash. One of his great battles was against this king. And the king was a really wise person, you know. And from somewhere, I don't know whether I invented this or whether I read it somewhere, but there was a scene between the two of them where Alexander's army was on one side of this river, the Hadassies River, ready to cross an attack. And Poros' army was on the other side and they met in the middle on a barge. And they had a conversation.

1:20:54And on that barge, King Poros said to... And Alexander had conquered the world, right? He was unstoppable. And Poros said to him, I will give you the hand of my daughter in marriage. And I will give you myself. I will instruct you in how to be a king. And Alexander, like, his eyeballs rolled back in his head. And he said, what do you dare you tell me, I'm not a king, I've conquered the world. And Poros said to him, you are a conqueror. And Poros is much older. Alexander was like 24 years old. He says, you are a conqueror, but you're not a king. And the point he made was, how many of the people in the lands you've conquered have you made more free?

1:21:37How many have you made more prosperous? What have you done to the world? When you look at my land across the river here, you'll see farms that are prosperous, beautiful children, the whole land flourishes, et cetera, et cetera. You're like a ship or an armada that crosses the ocean. And the only thing you control is that spot right where you are. And even as you've passed all these other countries, Persia, and so on, all you've done is hired the same people that you conquered, left them in charge to torture the people as like the people. So you're not a king, you're a conqueror. And I realized that's the theme of the story.

1:22:17That's Alexander's evolution and how he sort of takes that to heart at that point. I don't know if that makes sense, but a bad story. So that kind of told me how it would end. Yeah, by the way, there's one other story that's actually a true story. When Alexander was in India, he came upon yogis, Sardines for the first time. I call them the gymnocephas, which meant the naked wise men. At one point, Alexander and his retinue were passing along the banks of not the Ganges, but some other river. And they came upon a bunch of yogis who were meditating in the sun. And Alexander's lieutenants kind of kicked them out of the way.

1:22:59One guy wouldn't move. One kind of old -black guy wouldn't move. And the lieutenant came, said to Alexander, was coming up. He said to the wise man, this man has conquered the world. What have you done? And the yogi said, I have conquered the need to conquer the world. And Alexander, at that point, left in appreciation. And he got it, right? And he said to everybody, as people he said, if I could be anyone in the world other than myself, I would be this man right here. Wow. And so, anyway, that's just a great story, I think. So beautiful. Yeah, so beautiful. I have conquered the need to conquer the world.

1:23:42So you hear these historical stories, and then you think I can build a fictional story. Yeah, I can find a through line that has a theme and that pays off in the end. You know, that posits an issue and that pays off in the end. Do you need to make any choices on behalf of the book different than the information that you're getting in research? You do, and you need to. If the book is about something and it has a theme, and every scene has to echo that theme in one way or another, sometimes you create scenes that should have happened, or maybe they even did happen, but nobody reported them. But the point of that scene is to bring out a certain aspect of the theme.

1:24:29So yeah, definitely you would make it and create characters that don't exist or put words into the mouths of characters that if you really knew, if you could beam the guy back, he might say, I would never say that, you know, but it doesn't matter. For you, the goal is always, would you say the most entertaining book? Is that right? Well, it would be the one that you want everything to be entertaining. So I'm going to give you a word you would use to describe what you want the book to be. A book has got to deliver a load, just like a truck does, right? So that load is kind of the theme. What the book is about.

1:25:06Like Rocky's theme was a bum can be a champion if he's only given a chance. Couldn't in the American dream, right? And the movie delivers that, you know, in the end, you know, he's still standing. So that's what I tried to do. Whatever it's about, feel like this Alexander book is really about the military mindset and the virtues of a warrior. And by the end of the book, I hope that if I'm a young marine or whatever, I read this, yeah, that's the truth. That's, I'd like to be like that guy or I learned something about that guy. You could do a lot of other things. You could make it a tragedy. The guy overreached or whatever like that, but that wasn't the story I wanted to tell you.

1:25:52Would you say there's always a moral? Yeah, I mean, if there's a payoff to a theme, I don't know if you call it a moral, but there's a payoff to a theme. Which could be negative, you know, the hero could fail or it could be positive. At the time when you have several scenes, is that one you come to realize what the big theme is? Yes. But you don't start with the theme. You don't know the theme when you're starting. Right. It's probably the same in what you're doing, Rick. But in fact, that's kind of the hardest question to answer. I find, what's it about? It takes me sometimes to write the entire book and I don't know what it's about.

1:26:31That's really interesting. That's really interesting. In fact, it's happened more than once where my former editor and partner, Sean Cohen, he would write me notes. And basically, he would tell me what it's about. He would say, you know, this book is really about such and such as he's doing notes. And I'd go, wow, he's right. I had no idea. And then I'll go back and I'll have to cut everything that's not on the theme. Do you ever leave anything that's not on the theme? Or is it in service to the theme of the book? It is, absolutely. Yeah. So there can't be a sidebar that's a great story. You could, you know, if you have the, you know, because in a book, sometimes people are willing to read an extra 20 pages because it's fun.

1:27:12But you really shouldn't. I mean, here's where I sort of learned that. It's from Robert. You know, Robert McKee is. He tells this story. When he was a young director or actor, whatever he was in New York, he got a chance to interview Patty Chaefsky, right? Who's the only three time Oscar winner for original screenplay, right? And somehow they got to be talking about the subject of theme. And Patty Chaefsky said, as soon as I figure out the theme of my play, because he was a playwright, he says, I type it out in like one sentence, and I scotch tape it to the front of my typewriter. And after that, nothing goes into that script that is not on theme.

1:27:52Wow. So that's a real lesson for me. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. And I imagine that if you don't know the theme until late in the process, then you have to cut a bunch of stupid lead to it. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

1:28:31Yeah.