Pub Day Celebration! A Writer's Roundup w/ Martha Beck, Steven Pressfield, Elizabeth Lesser, & Aditi Khorana

Summary

Beautiful Writers Podcast: Pub Day Celebration with Martha Beck, Steven Pressfield, Elizabeth Lesser, & Aditi Khurana

In this celebratory episode of the Beautiful Writers Podcast, host Linda Sivertsen (aka Book Mama) marks the release of her latest book, Beautiful: A Journey of Big Dreams and Messy Manuscripts. Linda is joined by a stellar panel of bestselling authors Martha Beck, Steven Pressfield, Elizabeth Lesser, and Aditi Khurana. Together, they explore the multifaceted journey of writing, sharing personal anecdotes, professional insights, and heartfelt advice aimed at inspiring both seasoned writers and creative novices alike.

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1. Welcoming and Introductions

Linda opens the episode with heartfelt gratitude, acknowledging her listeners' role in making her new book a reality. She introduces her esteemed guests, each bringing a unique perspective to the table:

• Martha Beck: A New York Times bestselling author known for The Way of Integrity.
• Steven Pressfield: Renowned for The War of Art and The Power of Myth.
• Elizabeth Lesser: Co-founder of the Omega Institute and author of Broken Open.
• Aditi Khurana: A talented novelist and writing coach with a knack for marketing.

Linda shares personal connections with each guest, setting a warm and collaborative tone for the celebration.

Notable Quote:

• Martha Beck [04:30]: “Well, congratulations, Linda. Beautiful job. It looks great. People are going to love it.”

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2. The Writing Journey: Overcoming Challenges and Embracing Wins

The discussion delves into the challenges writers face, such as creating space for writing amidst busy lives and overcoming internal resistance. Linda emphasizes the importance of celebrating milestones and focusing on the wins rather than dwelling solely on obstacles.

Notable Quote:

• Linda Sivertsen [10:46]: “Any hacks that you guys are kind of figuring out now post Covid? Any writing hacks or health hacks or motivation hacks that are helping?”

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3. Simplifying Life to Foster Creativity

Martha Beck shares her struggles with maintaining simplicity in a complicated life, especially with the added responsibilities of book promotion and marketing. She highlights the power of saying "no" as a superpower for writers trying to carve out dedicated time for their craft.

Notable Quote:

• Martha Beck [12:52]: “But I still do say no to a lot of stuff. That's the only. That's the superpower. I think of simplifying your life is saying no. And it's hard for me.”

Elizabeth Lesser echoes this sentiment, discussing the shift from a busy life to one that demands more discipline and structured writing time. She credits having a writing buddy as a crucial element in maintaining her writing schedule.

Notable Quote:

• Elizabeth Lesser [14:56]: “We sort of hold our feet to the writer's seat and, like, jibe each other and shame each other a little bit and help each other stay on track.”

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4. Holding to Your Vision: The Power of Persistence

Linda shares her experience with selecting her book's cover, emphasizing the importance of trusting one's instincts despite external pressures. Elizabeth Lesser recounts her battle to retain her book title, Broken Open, against a younger marketing team's suggestions, ultimately leading to the book's success.

Notable Quote:

• Elizabeth Lesser [24:27]: “How about finding the Light at the End of the Tunnel? I was like, well, first you got a break, and then you get to the light, but you gotta break. You gotta do that.”

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5. Embracing Support Systems: Shared Belief and Collaboration

Linda likens writing support groups to forests with interconnected roots, highlighting how collaboration and shared belief systems can bolster a writer's journey. Steven Pressfield discusses the evolution of his writing process during the pandemic, emphasizing gratitude and the shift from pressure to ease.

Notable Quote:

• Steven Pressfield [20:56]: “I get to make a living writing books and articles. I get to do this. And I wouldn't do anything else.”

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6. The Joy of Completing a Work: Celebrating Milestones

Guests reflect on the profound joy of finishing a manuscript. Martha Beck describes it as a private triumph, a moment of personal victory that contrasts sharply with the solitary nature of writing.

Notable Quote:

• Martha Beck [44:29]: “It's just a total private moment where you just sort of say to yourself, God damn it, I fucking did it.”

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7. Personal Missions and Inspirations: Driving Forces Behind the Words

Each guest shares their personal mission that fuels their writing:

• Martha Beck sees herself as a servant to the muse, always ready for the next creative assignment.

  Notable Quote:

  • Martha Beck [58:57]: “I just want another season. And the season is defined for me by whatever the goddess wants me to do.”

• Steven Pressfield discusses transforming personal despair into meaningful work, embodying what he calls a "pathologically helpful disorder."

  Notable Quote:

  • Steven Pressfield [61:53]: “I have pathologically helpful disorder. And the amazing punchline is that I set out to just be of service and instead I've been so beautifully served.”

• Aditi Khurana focuses on venturing into the unknown, likening the creative process to falling in love and exploring new neural connections.

  Notable Quote:

  • Aditi Khurana [60:41]: “Opening these doors into unknown realms of the unconscious and these spaces. ... It's also been significant.”

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8. Rituals, Journaling, and Daily Practices: Maintaining Momentum

The panel discusses various rituals and practices that sustain their writing momentum:

• Martha Beck uses strategic breaks within her chapters to maintain her writing flow.

  Notable Quote:

  • Martha Beck [19:XX]: “I have to play little tricks with myself about finishing in mid sentence so that you'll want to go back the next day and keep up your momentum.”

• Aditi Khurana maintains a constant flow of ideas through a comprehensive note-taking system across multiple platforms.

  Notable Quote:

  • Aditi Khurana [49:39]: “I have a note card system. I have notes on my phone. So I feel as though I'm constantly… typing or writing.”

• Steven Pressfield utilizes voice memos and flexible writing schedules to adapt to life’s unpredictabilities.

  Notable Quote:

  • Stephen Pressfield [50:06]: “I write on my phone now while I'm waiting at doctor's offices or whatever, take advantage of technology.”

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9. Embracing Co-Creation and the Muse: A Collaborative Dance

Linda emphasizes her belief in co-creating with the muse, viewing writing as a collaboration between her effort and a higher creative force. Martha Beck and Steven Pressfield reinforce this idea, discussing their roles as servants to the muse and the divine assignments that guide their work.

Notable Quotes:

• Linda Sivertson [46:30]: “It's a co-creation, you know.”
• Martha Beck [58:57]: “I am a servant of the muse. My only question when I finish one book is, what's the next assignment?”

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10. Final Reflections and Celebrations

As the episode draws to a close, Linda reflects on the collective wisdom shared by her guests. She underscores the importance of community, shared belief, and perseverance in the writing process. The guests offer final words of encouragement, celebrating each other's successes and the continuous journey of creative exploration.

Notable Quote:

• Linda Sivertson [64:13]: “Trees and human communities are alike in their advantages of working together. You all have taught me so much about how to be a more beautiful writer.”

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Conclusion

This episode of the Beautiful Writers Podcast serves as both a celebration of Linda Sivertsen's new book and a rich exploration of the writing life. With insights from bestselling authors and creative minds, listeners gain valuable perspectives on overcoming challenges, holding steadfast to their visions, and embracing the collaborative nature of writing. Whether you're navigating the messy middle of your manuscript or celebrating the completion of your masterpiece, this episode offers inspiration and practical advice to fuel your creative journey.

Transcript

[Aditi Khurana]

Foreign.

[Linda Sievertson]

Sievertson coming to you on pub day for my new book Beautiful A Journey of Big Dreams and Messy Manuscripts with tricks of the trade from best selling authors. I wanted to share this celebration with you in a writer's roundup because you, our listeners, have helped make this book a reality. I don't think I've ever been so excited to release a book, not even for my first one nearly a quarter of a century ago. Holy smokes. With this one I really took my time to get it to the point where I love it. Hopefully you'll find her fun and funny and unlike any writing book you've read. It's a coming of career writing memoir with all sorts of magic and mayhem mixed with wisdom, advice and inspiration from some of the most beloved authors in the world. Excerpts taken straight from this show. My goal with this book was to share the behind the scenes details we writers struggling to claw our way to the top or even the middle don't normally share, and to do it cinematically so you feel like you're there. As you may know, I was driven from the start to help save forests and animals. Like living in them. Kind of a conflict when what you're attempting to do for a living kills trees. But I was so driven by my vision, still am, that much of what I did was absurd and over the top and even foolish. But it was practical too. Looking back, my story is kind of a roadmap for succeeding in any creative venture, and in the end, things worked out more beautifully than I dared to hope as you watch me struggle in the storyline to work out questions like do I need a degree to write? And how do I make a living before it pays to write? And what's the best way to wrangle time so good habits stick? And how about landing and keeping a literary agent? How do you do that? Wisdom of the Greats throughout put my every step into vivid, relatable context. These grades include the four bestselling authors here with me on today's show. Once I bring them on, which may sound a little herky jerky because of how everyone was initially muted on our zoom call so we were waving at each other in silence, I will share a few specifics about what each person means to me. For the quickie bios, we've got Martha Beck, New York Times bestselling author of a bunch of books, the most recent the Way of Integrity, an Oprah Book Club pick. We've got the legendary Steven Pressfield, author of A Bible in Our Field, the War of Art and Other Massive hits, including his new riveting read, put your ass where your heart wants to be and a few movies too. The incredible novelist and writing teacher and ex Hollywood marketing mind, Aditi Khurana is here with a take on the topic of time that is so cutting edge that that alone, you guys is worth the price of admission. And New York Times bestselling memoirist, Elizabeth Lesser, who co founded the famed Omega Institute where she's been supporting creatives and leaders like Oprah, hands on in a big way for decades. All four of my guests are my heroes. A few of them have blurbed this book. And I think you will find that whatever stage you're in with your writing, they will bring you aha's and relief today. As many times as I've had them on the show or read their work, they always surprise me. Creativity, like life, is constantly changing, as are they. So thank you for celebrating with me, with us. Thank you for buying beautiful writers and supporting sustainable paper choices, which is helping my tree hugging dreams come true. I hope that the information in the book will likewise make it easier to realize whatever dreams you are holding close. I am so happy you are here. Welcome. Hello, my friend.

[Martha Beck]

Well, congratulations, Linda. Beautiful job. It looks great. People are going to love it. Today's pub day, huh?

[Linda Sievertson]

When this airs, it will be on Tuesday.

[Martha Beck]

Okay.

[Linda Sievertson]

How's ass going? I love that book.

[Martha Beck]

It's doing pretty good actually. So far, so good.

[Linda Sievertson]

It's such a good book.

[Martha Beck]

This is terrific too. And a beautiful job.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, thank you. Oh, here's Elizabeth. Hi. Pretty.

[Stephen Pressfield]

Hey.

[Linda Sievertson]

Hi. You sound fabulous. And you look even more fabulous.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Thank you. Hi.

[Martha Beck]

Hi, Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Hi. Nice to see you.

[Linda Sievertson]

Thank you for showing up for my party. And you two both gave me such beautiful blurbs. It's so appreciated. I can't even.

[Martha Beck]

You deserve it, Linda. The book deserves it.

[Stephen Pressfield]

Oh, goodness.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, goodness.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Anything. Anything these days that adds some beauty and joie de vivre is what we need.

[Linda Sievertson]

That's beautiful. Yeah. I want people to believe in their own magic. I've had so many magical things happen and resistance the whole way. Right, Stephen? None of us gets out alive on the resistance. But the magic is always there. And I wanted to write the stories that would remind people about that. Hi, Aditi. Hey, Martha.

[Stephen Pressfield]

I'm so happy to be here.

[Linda Sievertson]

You guys are fabulous.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Hi, Martha.

[Martha Beck]

Everybody looks great.

[Linda Sievertson]

I know, Stephen. You're the only.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Boy, you look great too, Stephen.

[Martha Beck]

Thank you. That was.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Hi, Martha.

[Linda Sievertson]

I want to kick this off by telling our listeners who you are to me and why it's so special that you are here at this beautiful writer's book celebration party. Martha, you have been on the show more than any other guest. I need to get you one of those SNL five Timer jackets. Only with this appearance, you've now been here seven whole times.

[Stephen Pressfield]

Amazing.

[Linda Sievertson]

I think that's like a tenth of my shows have been with you, so. And then you asked me to host your online book launch for Diana herself a few years ago, which was such a great honor. And you were the first celebrity author to say yes to using your words from the podcast for this book. You've written stories for me for the book that we didn't talk about on the podcast, as had Steven. And you're interviewing me for this book on your upcoming podcast. So basically, you're heaven to me. Martha, from the very, very beginning in 2004, you were trying to help me get an environmental column into O magazine, so.

[Stephen Pressfield]

That's right.

[Linda Sievertson]

I'm out of words. Just so, so much love.

[Stephen Pressfield]

Oh, thank you so much, dear Beck Hatcha.

[Linda Sievertson]

All right, Stephen, from the time that Danielle laporte and I first had you on this show in, I don't know, 2015 or 2016, you were like, yeah, I don't normally like to do this kind of thing, but you guys asked me questions nobody ever has before, so it was pretty fun. And we struck up a friendship. You had us over to your fabulous house, we went to brunch, and we've stayed in touch ever since. And I love how your emails to me end with refrains like, go kill it, kid. Or break a leg, kid, or, we gotta stay beautiful, you and I, and you always have the funniest shit to say. So thank you for being my bud. I could die happy, as they say.

[Martha Beck]

It's my pleasure.

[Linda Sievertson]

Thank you, Elizabeth. The best thing about having your own show is being able to make new friends. You and I hit it off when we did the show with Martha for your memoir, Marrow, about your bone marrow transplant donation to your sister who had cancer. I have a sister? I felt such a kinship. And then you and I were both speaking at the same stage for TED Women. We went to dinner before our speeches the night before. Then afterward, we decided to go to your hotel room and practice and bolster each other up. And I remember just laughing, saying, this is the scariest, hardest thing we have ever done.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Yeah.

[Linda Sievertson]

And when I sent you the snippets for this book, you were so enthusiastic and dear, and I just adore you.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Thank you. Right. As Steven said. Right back at you, kid.

[Linda Sievertson]

And then Aditi. Oh, gosh. We met at a Liz Gilbert event in Malibu years ago. You turned around in your seat and said, excuse me, are you book mama? Which, of course, made me love you instantly. And you told me you were writing. You hadn't been published yet, and I could just feel it. I could tell that you had these novels in you that were gonna be incredible. And right then and there, I thought, I will do whatever it takes to help you started to send me pages. I was completely blown away. I start sending you out to agent friends of mine. And it was no surprise to me when you got your first significant book deal and movie option. Why I'm so particularly happy to have you here today is that I don't really think this book would have been done without you. Because as someone who's done marketing at movie studios and produced at cnn, I knew that you would have a particular talent for wrapping your mind around big concepts and bringing order to chaos. And so when you said to me, how can I help you, Linda? I thought, well, okay, here we go. And I convinced you to let me pay you, because you just cannot ask a friend to read thousands of pages of podcast transcripts and help you develop an outline. But that's what I needed, actually. Beautiful writers. Chapter nine has a chapter called the Power of Shared Belief, where we talk about writing groups and accountability buddies and all of that, but sometimes it's too big and you need to hire somebody. And so, Aditi, you were magic. We sat in a hotel for three days and ate takeout, and you helped me wrangle an impossible outline. So I just love you. I love you for it forever. Thank you, sister.

[Aditi Khurana]

Oh, thank you, Linda. I had so much fun. And now we might have to trade the process because I'm wrangling my next manuscript now, so I need help.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, bless you. Count me in, sister. I want to talk about celebrations, because this is obviously a celebration day for me. I've been working on this book for years, and y'all have done the same with your books. You've talked about it on the podcast. And I think putting rituals around milestones is important. And we've all had those periods where we think our writing is never going to get finished. It's never going to happen. Our life blows up, as Steven beautifully talks about in his work. Resistance, resistance, resistance. And it doesn't mean we can't talk about that today. But what I really want to focus on the most are the wins, the good news, the things that we did right, the choices we made. Where we look back and we go, damn, that worked. Let's start with how to make space for our writing and how that can happen. Steven, you have a great bit in the book about you've worked really hard to simplify your life. I want to talk about how others. How have you guys simplified your life so that your writing works more in balance with the rest of your life?

[Martha Beck]

I'll plug in there right away. Actually, my life is getting a lot more complicated lately. I was just talking the other day about it. I had a couple of years earlier in my struggles where I had saved enough money to rent a little house and just for two years did nothing but read and write. And it was like the formative time for me. And I remember thinking, then what am I going to do when I get back in a real world and actually have to relate to people again? Nowadays, with the obligation of promoting your book and marketing it and all that sort of stuff, it's really getting. I'm struggling with trying to keep my life simple. A lot of it for me is just. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but it's kind of on the fly. In the course of a day, I have to sort of say, well, okay, I can't do anything from eight until 10, but maybe I can carve two or three hours out after that and then just stick to it. But it's sort of on the fly for me. It's hard. It's getting hard and getting harder.

[Linda Sievertson]

It is hard. What I love that Robert McKee said about you. He said that when he calls you sometimes your answering machine will say, hey, I'm writing. Call me in two months. Don't leave a message because I'm not going to check it, but call me in two months and I hope I'm done. Do you still do that? Do you still totally go off the grid? Yeah.

[Martha Beck]

No. But I still do say no to a lot of stuff. That's the only. That's the superpower. I think of simplifying your life is saying no. And it's hard for me.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Yeah, I agree. Saying no. Actually, when you were asking about simplifying your life, I was thinking back to when I wrote my first books. I had the most complicated life. I had three kids, a stepson, a new marriage, a full time job. And something about having a very, very busy life made my writing time so precious, so intense. Like compressed power. It was powerful because it was compressed. And then as the kids grew up and left and I no longer work full time at Omega Institute. And I sometimes find that harder. I don't know if the rest of you can relate to this. It's like there's so much more time. I have to be more disciplined. I have to be like, okay, this is when I write. And I have found that if I can say no, which is hard, hardest thing to, let's say these four hours. And one thing that's helped is that I've got myself a writing buddy. We don't show each other what we write. We just, at the end of the week, say, did you keep those hours sacred? Did you do it? Why didn't you do it? We sort of hold our feet to the writer's seat and, like, jibe each other and shame each other a little bit and help each other stay on track. But I don't know about simp if that makes it easier or harder. What do you all think?

[Stephen Pressfield]

I once read a book by a novelist whose work I had enjoyed, and he was always struggling to get time. And he wrote this one book that his fans or his family or somebody rented this cottage on the beach, and they didn't even call him. Somebody would tiptoe in and leave food three times a day and take his laundry away. But he literally had no distractions.

[Linda Sievertson]

Wow.

[Stephen Pressfield]

And it was the worst book I'd ever seen in my life.

[Linda Sievertson]

Terrible.

[Stephen Pressfield]

The critics who loved this guy just demolished it. And because there's nothing else you could do, it is just a horrible book. And it suffered enormously, I think, from one man sitting and gazing at his own navel.

[Linda Sievertson]

Whoa.

[Stephen Pressfield]

To me, writing is about the experience of being human. And we all sat on a beach with people tiptoeing in to bring us food. Maybe that would have been a terrific read, but he just couldn't find a story in there. And it was a real object lesson to me that I don't want my life to be like that. I always have to squeeze out minutes and hours. It's really hard. Sometimes I get up early, stay up late. I write on my phone now while I'm waiting at doctor's offices or whatever, take advantage of technology. But I stopped trying to simplify my life because I'm not sure, as Elizabeth said, I'm not sure that what we need is simplicity.

[Linda Sievertson]

Interesting. Oh, I really appreciate that, Aditi, you're shaking your head.

[Aditi Khurana]

I really agree with this because I feel like what the pandemic did was it broke time for us and we no longer live in linear time. I think we live in quantum time.

[Linda Sievertson]

Whoa.

[Aditi Khurana]

Yeah. I think it's like, we live in sort of like a fractalized time. And I think our concepts of narrative have changed, and I think the way that we move through life has changed. And I don't think we have a language for it yet. And I'm really interested to see what kind of art is going to pop up in the next few years that reflects the shift in terms of how we view time.

[Stephen Pressfield]

Wow.

[Aditi Khurana]

Because it sort of, like, opens up in bubbles where you don't expect it, and closes down other areas where you don't need it. And I think we're seeing sort of the development of that both in our lives and in our art.

[Linda Sievertson]

You just blew my mind. Because the other day I was having a conversation with an author, and she said, what are you doing? What are you planning? And I said, I haven't been motivated to plan anything. She said, what? No book party? I was like, nope. I have things coming up. I have events coming up, which I'll put on my website soon. But really, truly, I was just sitting back and I kept thinking, what is wrong with me? Is this Steven's resistance? Would he tell me I'm blowing up my life? And I kept hearing, no. This is about the difference between allowing and pushing. Throughout my life, I've worked so hard, as we all have nights, middle of the nights, you know, push, push, push to get things done. And Covid has changed me. And getting Covid a couple of months ago really changed me because never in my life ever have I sat on a couch during a day and watched movies. Never. Not one time. And so my. And my husband. Oh, God, no. He was the kind of guy, he would feel so ashamed if in the middle of the day, when he could be out on the tractor or with the horses or doing something productive, he was watching a movie. We were so tired from COVID we did nothing but just sit like zombies on the couch. At one point, the horse, some elk came in the yard, broke a fence, and we had to go out and fix the fence. But it felt Herculean. And I have not gone back to my ways yet. And I kind of like it. I'm trying to find a new language for this new Linda because I don't really recognize her, but I think she's kind of swell. And I have a sense she might live longer because my parents. I always said my mom burnt herself out. She worked so hard for so long, so quickly that by 59, she was done. So thank you, Aditi. That's kind of cool. Wow, Stephen, One of the ways that you seem to simplify your writing is you like to work with that full SCAP method where you put the entire outline of a novel on a single sheet of a yellow legal pad, forcing you to figure out the ending at the beginning. And Aditi, you've talked in the past on this show about how you will plot out a book, but you rarely know how the ending is going to happen. It feels like a trapeze artist, but ultimately you trust that if you've plotted the book well, it will work out. And Martha, I love the piece that you talk about in the book about how you have to play little tricks with yourself. You won't end a chapter and be done with it and walk away because then you may not want to get back to it for six days or two weeks or whatever. So you have to play little tricks with yourself about finishing in mid sentence so that you'll want to go back the next day and keep up your momentum. So any hacks that you guys are kind of figuring out now post Covid? Any writing hacks or health hacks or motivation hacks that are helping?

[Stephen Pressfield]

I loved Covid so much. I mean, I didn't get it. Everybody in my family did. I don't know why I didn't get it, but sorry. I did not love Covid. For those of you who were sick, it's a horrible disease and so many people lost so much. But the pandemic was fabulous. I had a book, I had a contract. I was working on something which is such a privilege to be paid to write a book. So the gratitude for that. I just said 10 to 12 every day is my writing time. And I never got stuck. I never stopped writing. I never didn't do it in that time. I got the book done under schedule. It was such a blissful way of writing. And I'm not sure exactly what created that, but I think it was kind of the peace that settled over the entire world.

[Linda Sievertson]

Yeah.

[Stephen Pressfield]

As people stopped pushing so hard. I think that pushing hard is one of the symptoms of the madness of our culture. And when I stopped pushing and just allowed it to be, I'd made it very, very regular. And there was something in the spirit of the time that took away all the pushing and left me with absolute ease. It was the weirdest experience. I didn't push at all and it just happened.

[Linda Sievertson]

Wow. Okay. I'm thinking back to when we talked about that on one of the episodes. There was some resistance at one point, but it wasn't from you. It was from your publishing team. If I Recall who didn't get the book at first. You just waited a while and then sent it back, and they loved it.

[Stephen Pressfield]

I didn't take out a lot of words. I didn't trim a lot. But at the time that I first sent in the book, I think there was quite a lot of. Nobody really knew what the pandemic would become. And it was really bad in New York City, and they were moving out of their offices. And it taught me something about when a person reads your book will influence so enormously the way they interpret it and whether they enjoy it or not.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, how?

[Stephen Pressfield]

Yeah, there were a lot of things where they said, I don't understand. I don't understand. And the book I'm writing now is about anxiety. And I will tell you why I think they didn't understand. They were in a state of fight or flight. Their little brains were pumping out hormones that said, run, hide. And that part of the brain doesn't talk, doesn't read, doesn't understand modern language. Of course, they were trying to sit down and read this nonfiction book in a state of absolute panic. You can't do it. So take into account how your readers are feeling and where they'll be when they read it. And don't always take it personally. If somebody hates your book, it may just be that they're having a horrible day. And, yeah, when I did send it back, they were like, how did this get so much better? Because they weren't so frightened anymore. I think, gosh, they don't hear this and think I'm calling them cowards. Nobody can focus.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

I remember with my book Broken Open, I knew that was the title, which is not usually how I. I usually really struggle with the title. But I wrote from that title. I knew that was the title. And I remember going into the marketing team at Random House, and they were all maybe between the ages of 20 and 24. And I was like, 50. And they were like, no, that title, no good Broken Open. That is sad. That is depressing. It's practically violent. No, we don't. We don't want that. How about Finding the Light or the Light at the End of the Tunnel? I was like, well, first you got a break, and then you get to the light, but you gotta break. You gotta do that. And they really fought me. And it was one of the few times I kept at it because it had to be the title. And then one of the young women lost her mother, and she came into the next meeting, and she was like, I totally get it. I know what that title means now, and that was what it needed. So I agree with you, Martha. You gotta hold, you know. You know what the book is.

[Linda Sievertson]

That's major. I try to tell people all the time when I'm editing for them. I'll say, here's a vision I'm having for your work, or here's something I would do. But don't take my word for it. This has to feel right in your gut. Naditi, when you and I sat together and did the outline for my book, it felt right in my gut. You weren't giving me something that I couldn't handle. You were showing me something that was already in my heart.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Yeah.

[Linda Sievertson]

What I love, too, about what you just said, Elizabeth. And this goes back to celebrating our wins. You held to your guns, and it ended up being very, very wise because Broken Open was a New York Times bestseller. If I remember correctly, Oprah loved it. It was a win. It was a total win. And I did something really hard for me with the publication of this book. My publisher sent me 10 different covers. They were all gorgeous. And I picked the one that we have now. It was very hard to pick. And I went to sleep. There was no greenery around the COVID It was just a typewriter and the white background and the font. Went to sleep. Woke up at three in the morning with insomnia, which I don't normally have. I opened up my computer and for some reason it was on Amazon. And there were writing books on my Amazon page. And I start scanning the writing books and noticing a bunch of them had typewriters, and one of them had almost the exact cover. So my publisher inadvertently had accidentally copied, without knowing it, a cover that is already doing very, very well, a very successful writing book. And almost the same font, almost the same colors on and on. I knew we were screwed because it was going to look like we were copying this person. So I gave them notes the next morning. They were so apologetic. They were darling. They ended up making great changes. But then at the end of the day, I still wanted to really differentiate it. I'm a greenie. I'm all about plants and helping the environment, and I wanted greenery on the COVID My last book, Generation Green, was the planet covered in leaves. Especially since this is published on sustainable paper. I wanted that greenery. They didn't want it. No, Linda, it's simpler. It's cleaner. We really think. And I just held to my guns. I'm like, nope. Sorry, guys. And so I made a mockup of the COVID with the greenery to show them exactly what I wanted. And they were so dear. They came back and they said, okay, what about this? And they made it better, but I had to push. I would say it was three or four back and forths by email. And the one thing people say to me all the time about my cover is how beautiful the greenery is. Any wins on holding your guns?

[Aditi Khurana]

Well, holding your guns. And I think this ties into both of the questions that you asked. I teach in an MFA program, and one of the first things that I tell my students is that the Odyssey was like the first YA lit of its time. Basically indoctrinating young men, right? Sending them off on an empire building campaign under the guise of the venture and conquest of the earth. Conquest of women, conquest of other lands, conquest of the other. And we've gotten sort of indoctrinated in these messages. This, like, colonization of the mind that I think when you're speaking about the COVID institutions get really locked into these ideas. Creativity is still very unique to us. We have to burrow through our own wounds to get to that unique genius. And one of the processes that entails is decolonizing your mind of all of these messages because they're not helpful and they keep us stuck. And so I don't know if that helps, but when we talk about conquest, again, of nature, of the earth, of women, of everything, we are nature, you know, it does look good to conquer ourselves. And we're talking about how we allocate our time, how we tap into our creativity, how we stick to our guns. I think it really is about discovering our own nature rather than looking outside of ourselves or looking at the preconceived messages that we've gotten from the world over the course of our lives.

[Linda Sievertson]

Sure. Well, interestingly, my sister, who's a Vedic astrologer, when I told her about my struggle with the leaves and the COVID she said, well, you know, you were born under the constellation of blah, blah, blah, and I. And it was in Hindu what she was saying. And I had no idea what she was talking about. And she said, oh, it's the healer of plants. So then she goes on to read me this whole thing about my chart, which is predominantly associated with supporting plant life. And I was blown away. I had no idea, but my instincts knew, or my soul perhaps knew that that is part of my destiny. So, Steven, I have to follow up with you because she's mentioning the Odyssey and the conquering, and you are one of the top military authors in the world. What's your take on what Beautiful. Aditi just said, I'm getting a little.

[Martha Beck]

Sick to my stomach hearing these stories because they're so true. I've had careers like, I started out in advertising, then after other things, I worked in the movies, and then finally into actual publishing. And it seems to me that anytime you deliver something to some entity that's supposedly the authority with a capital A, they always inevitably go to the single thing that is the most important in it, the whole heart of the story. And they just say, well, can I just cut that out? You know, I don't know why it's true, but it's always true. And I've tried to fight it every possible way I can, and you lose more than you win, but I don't know why that is. The one thing I have told myself is if I find myself in the position of being an authority and I'm talking to somebody that's the artist, the pro from Dover, I say shut up and let them do their thing and don't put my fingerprints on everything. But that's a problem. I've never been able to figure it out.

[Linda Sievertson]

Martha, with your PhD background, I bet you studied that at some point, why.

[Stephen Pressfield]

People take out the guts of the story.

[Linda Sievertson]

Yes.

[Stephen Pressfield]

I think it's because you're caught in this paradox. They want it to be exactly like this Eat, Pray, love that sold 13 million copies, and yet it has to be fresh and new and different. So you're shooting for an impossible target. And people who are real writers who have something to say in the world are going to want to say something different, and it won't be. Again, the paradox. They want it to be new, but they don't want to see anything that challenges what they already know. People are afraid of change. They're afraid of unfamiliarity. So when you do something different, like having a title like Broken Open instead of one like Yippity Yay, there's light. Yeah, they freak out. Unfamiliarity equals danger in most human brains. So they will go for the very part that is most original, that is most creative. And yeah, I've heard a lot of stories from editors about turning down the books that became not just the bestsellers, but the culture influencers. Because they're different.

[Linda Sievertson]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

And because they're deep and emotional. And people in advertising and corporations who need to make money seem to be terrified of emotions and emotional vulnerability and feeling like, as if feeling is a dirty word, anything that kind of the edginess is about. Emotional vulnerability scares a lot of people.

[Martha Beck]

Let me ask you guys a question here. Because this is sort of flipping this around. I find when people ask me for my opinion and want me to read something, you know, friend, which I pretty much. I say, I will never do that ever again. One of the reasons that I sort of disqualify myself. And that's why I want to ask what you guys would think about this. I read something and I say, well, here's how I would do it. And that's like the last thing that anybody wants and the last thing that they should want. That's really a bad way to go about it, because it's their book, right?

[Linda Sievertson]

Sure.

[Martha Beck]

Linda, you've worked with so many people. How do you edit in a. I'm asking everybody in a good way without putting your stuff on top of somebody else's.

[Linda Sievertson]

You have to take it case by case. I have a recent case of somebody who came to me and she was ready to go to print. Self publishing. She has a lot of success in publishing, traditionally with big houses. And she sent me the work and it wasn't ready, in my opinion. And I said to her, here's why it's not ready. It was a little redundant. A lot of times people forget that their readers are really smart, and you have to trust your reader. So if you get too redundant, your reader will actually feel like you're talking down to them. And she didn't realize that was happening. And she had a great editor, but they had been working on other stuff and kind of missed this really obvious thing. And so I didn't have a lot of time, nor did she. And I just rewrote a chapter just to show her so that she could take it and run with it after that point. And I said to her, I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds. And I don't want to be rude, but I love you, and I want you to have the most readers possible. And I think it comes down to confidence. I trusted my gut on it. I trusted her ability to hear me, and I trusted that she wouldn't take it personal. And she didn't. And she was so excited, and it was so easy for all three of us. But there are other cases where any negative comment, even if you're confident that you're right, is really going to crush that person. And so it's case by case, and it is not easy. But I think you do, over time, get really good at reading the energy of the room, so to speak.

[Stephen Pressfield]

What if you had a really terrible, terrible manuscript and somebody, like, irredeemable, because this happens to Be quite frequently. I get maybe between five and 10 manuscripts every week, unsolicited. They find my address somehow. And most of them, it would really, really take a long, long time to make them into something. Do you ever just say, I don't think so. Never happened?

[Linda Sievertson]

No, no, no. Because here's why. There's a version of it, yes, but overall, no. And the reason is, when people come to me, I never take writing samples. I just look at their eyes and determine whether they have the passion. And then I'll invite them to a retreat. Because somebody can be a terrible writer, but if they have the goal and the motivation and the intention and they're really in it, we can get them a ghostwriter. My God, we can get them an editor. That's not hard. The hard part is sustaining the passion. So I have found that when people have the passion, they will hear the truth all day long. They'll actually be grateful. So I get myself in such a tizzy. I'm so scared to tell somebody. I feel terrible before I have to make that call. And then they're like, oh, thank God. I knew it wasn't ready. And then they get the writer, and two years, five years later, they publish it. And it's phenomenal. I think you're just missing that one piece where you trust that they're also psychic, because aren't we all? Everybody's psychic. So you can be grandiose, but unless you're insane, you're psychic and you will appreciate the truth. It's just how you give the truth. And the last thing I'll say on that, that I often, I think have at my disposal that works, is I get to say I wasn't ready either. And I thought I was. When I share the stories about this book, you guys, oh, my God. I'm going to do another show with some of the celebrity people who were actually there in the storyline when I was struggling all those years. And one of the people I'll bring on is my sister, because she had far more training than I did in writing. Took writing classes with an amazing coach for 10 years straight. And she is one of the most brilliant, if not the most brilliant editor on planet Earth. And she would read my stories and go, nope, not ready yet. And I'm thinking, damn, I've ghostwritten New York Times bestsellers. I know this industry. Like, what the F? And Aditi's smiling because she knows my sister. My sister does not pull punches. She's like, sorry, Linda, not funny enough. There's not enough sensory input in this chapter, I don't care, and I'm your damn sister. Now, I had editors who had read it, who loved it, and they should have known. But no, not everybody knows everything. As Van Jones said to me, writing is a team sport. We are all too close to our own stuff. And what's often easy for us to see in somebody else's story can be really hard to see in our own. You have to take advice from several different sources sometimes to get the full picture. And I trusted my sister the most. So I love hard truths. I loved it when my sister slammed me. It hurt every time. Every time. I wanted to die for about five minutes. And then I was grateful. Then I was grateful. And now I read my book and I go, you know what? I don't have any more changes. So eventually, for you listeners out there in the freaking messy middle, eventually you will love it. But it's worth taking the time, isn't it?

[Aditi Khurana]

I think it's so worth taking the time because I really believe in the process of writing a few novels now, in the manuscript that I'm working on right now, that ideas are alive and they have their own schedule. And where I've had to make a distinction between ambition and devotion. Of course, I have this ambition to publish this book that I want to get out into the world right now. But also tending to it with this regular devotion produces a completely different manuscript. I've been working, and Linda knows a little bit about this, on a book about the Lilith myth for the past four years. And the myth is about exile. It's about grief, it's about loss. It's about so many things. And when I started working on it, I started working on it four years ago. And I did not realize that this myth was going to take me on that journey. Like, I would have to live it and get to the end of it.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, shit. Nobody warned you about that.

[Aditi Khurana]

Nobody warned me about this. We have to live it. And five drafts later, I've written this book in five different ways, in five different genres and so many different ways of telling it. There's so many Liliths out there who I've cajoled and courted, but you just have to work with what you're given. And it's on its own schedule. I still think art takes a long time.

[Linda Sievertson]

Elizabeth, that reminds me of Cassandra Speaks.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Yeah, definitely I should send you that book.

[Linda Sievertson]

Your beautiful book, Cassandra Speaks. Have you read it, Aditi?

[Aditi Khurana]

I have not, but now I'm going to.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, so in your wheelhouse.

[Stephen Pressfield]

You guys are all giving me the answer to my question. Because I'm thinking about this one gentleman who wrote a book, and he called me and he said, I've never really read a book, and I've never written anything, but I needed some quick money, so I thought I'd write about my wife's cancer.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, Lord.

[Stephen Pressfield]

And I've written this book, and I'm telling you guys, it was irredeemable. But he didn't have the passion, and he wasn't willing to do the work. What I'm hearing is if you have the passion, put that there's always a way doing enormous amounts of very hard work, even though the passion pulls you forward. And, yeah, I think if you don't have either the passion or the will to work, it's harder. But everybody here has those things, and I bet all your listeners do, too.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, no doubt. Steven says in the chapter called Dancing with the Muse, he said, I believe we're all born with a destiny. There are the works we're put on earth to write as writers. I think that if the muse is flying overhead, looking down and sees somebody with that attitude, she is very happy because that is what she wants. She's asking, is this person a true servant of mine? And I have seen that over and over again where people show up to my retreats, and I had to really, really think about whether they should come, because I just thought, oh, they can't speak very well when we're talking on the phone. I don't think they're gonna write very well. And often they don't. I'm thinking about one woman. English was a second language for her, but she was so on fire for her project and super grandiose. When those people tell you they're gonna be on Oprah in six months, you go, oh, brother. Right? So I was really worried, but I just knew her passion was so alive, I knew to let her come. And she has since become a ghostwriter in South America, helping people write bestsellers of. What I didn't get initially was because her English wasn't very good. I didn't understand the essence of how intelligent she was. And I'm just so glad I trusted my instincts because she's had so much success and has really had a fulfilling career. So it's a case by case basis. Elizabeth, before you have to go, out of all the books that you've published, what was your most joyful publishing celebration moment?

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Well, I imagine all of you on our panel and listening, maybe has had this same experience. There's that moment after the two, three, four years, however long you've been working on a book, when it begins to end, you know you're getting to the end. For me, it's like everything starts going really fast. Things just, like, coming to me, like channeling, which is not the experience I have for the other years of it, which is resistance, resistance. Everything you say in the war of art, Steven, that's my general experience of writing. But when it's coming to the end, and it tells you every single book I've written, those moments are like jewels on a necklace of joy. Those are some amazing days when it all comes together and you get the final words of the book. I've only written five books, but I want to do it again just for those days, even though I know the years before are going to be so hard. So I'd say each one of them had that moment that maybe was three days or five days. And the last book, Cassandra Speaks, which I knew I had to write this book because so much of my work has been in the feminist realm. And I didn't really want to write it, especially right now in these gender fluid times when just saying the word woman can get you into trouble. But I had to write this book. I wouldn't be able to die happy unless I wrote the book. So when that happened, when that book came to its fabulous gem like ending, that was probably the happiest ever.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, God, I love that so much. That reminds me. In the chapter of Divine Timing and Dreams Realized, Meg Wolitzer tells a really similar story. She says, there's a little bit of a Snoopy dance when I finish a book. A sense of real pleasure and excitement that I actually feel. Finish this thing. Sometimes when you see the end in sight, you speed up and run toward it. The runs are often shorter than you thought they'd be the minute you turn the corner. It's like when you see the destination you've been driving toward and you race toward it. And so she talks a little bit more about the excitement, and then she says, then it's a long process of not letting go. When it goes to copy editing, you're still making changes, but it feels really, really good. I sometimes say to my editor, I can't even believe I wrote the whole thing. It's like, I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Yeah.

[Aditi Khurana]

Yeah.

[Martha Beck]

One thing I would say is, at least these moments for me is they're completely private. You know, they're totally inside your own. It's not like you could turn to anybody, your spouse or anybody and say, wow, isn't this great? It's only in your own head.

[Linda Sievertson]

Yeah.

[Martha Beck]

A lot of times for me, I won't use the word anticlimactic, but it's. Although, as you guys know, you finish a book like 20 times, right?

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, yeah.

[Martha Beck]

The first time when you think you've got it and then you realize, oh, no, I've got five more months. By the time it's finally done, you've already celebrated like 20 times. But sometimes I'll be watching something like the super bowl or the World Series and the moment when the team wins and. Right. Everybody swarms onto the field or the basketball court. And I think for a writer, it's not like that at all. At least it isn't for me. It's just a total private moment where you just sort of say to yourself, God damn it, I fucking did it. You know?

[Linda Sievertson]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

Amen. Yeah.

[Martha Beck]

And you're grateful because it's not you. It's like, thank you for giving me this.

[Linda Sievertson]

It's a co creation, you know? Yeah. It feels to me like a dance. Like a co creation. I never assume it's all me, but I never assume it's not at all me because I know that I'm at least an open enough channel so that the muse or God or Mother Nature or Fruity Pebbles, like whoever is giving it to me, I've put myself in a position to be there. I've made the time. I've made the sacrifices. I've said no to the family reunion or the horseback ride or the dinner. And it's not easy being a writer, guys. You know this. It's not easy saying no to our people. And our people don't love it. That's the hardest freaking part. And why sometimes books take so long because we do have to have lives where we have relationships with people. But, oh, it feels so good knowing that we're in a co collaboration or a conversation.

[Elizabeth Lesser]

I'm so sorry, everyone, but I do have to leave. It was such a joy to be with you all. Thank you.

[Linda Sievertson]

Love you, Elizabeth. Bye, sweetie.

[Martha Beck]

You look at everything.

[Linda Sievertson]

You too, Aditi. You are smiling.

[Aditi Khurana]

Well, I just got goosebumps when Elizabeth and Steven were talking because it was a reminder that I'm on the right track and I'm at a stage of writing where I need that reminder reinforcement.

[Linda Sievertson]

Martha, does it still get hard for you too?

[Stephen Pressfield]

Much less. One thing about writing, the way of integrity, was I was practicing what I preached. So I was tracking what I enjoyed and tracking what was true for me at a very granular level. And because of the pandemic, I was able to do that. And it just. It was so weird.

[Linda Sievertson]

So that Grace has continued.

[Stephen Pressfield]

Yeah. And I used to have to break away from my book writing to write Oprah articles. I wrote an article a month for 20 years or whatever. 17 years.

[Linda Sievertson]

Holy hell.

[Stephen Pressfield]

So I'd be in the middle of trying to promote one book while writing another one and have to stop and write articles. And I was traveling to speak. And it's hard. I didn't realize that you have to be a marketer and a promoter as well as an author. So that was really hard and it's gotten much, much easier. But what I used to say when it got really difficult was and I didn't want to sit down and do another thing was I get to make a living writing books and articles. I get to do this. And I wouldn't do anything else. Well, suppose there could. I would never say never, but it's like, wow, I get to be a creative writer for a living. And the gratitude of that has gotten stronger and stronger and stronger. And that's. I think I've reached this place where I'm just so amazed by what life has given me from this particular process that it honestly feels like a really great relationship where it's been a long time since we had an argument. It really is my bliss at this point. And I don't know if the writing's any good, but boy, it's sure fun.

[Linda Sievertson]

The writing is just a little bit good. I mean, Oprah Book Club good. Whatever. We have a chapter in Beautiful Writers called Hook Em. Life is your best content. I talk about. Mark Twain said, truth is stranger than fiction. And doesn't it make sense to keep a record of your oh so bizarre and fascinating life? And I talk about different diarists over the years. Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau, Anise Nin. They all kept diaries. And Oscar Wilde said he never traveled without his diary because one should always have something sensational to read on the train. And I was thinking about you, Martha, about this amazing diary process or journal process that started for you as an English assignment in high school and has become a practice that has helped you write your bestsellers that continues to this day. Aditi, Stephen. Do you journal? Do you diary?

[Aditi Khurana]

I do. I note down everything. And I don't just journal. I have a note card system. I have notes on my phone. So I feel as though I'm constantly. My hands are always constantly typing or writing. Yeah, there are Multiple documents of all my ideas in multiple places at all times.

[Linda Sievertson]

Tom Hanks uses a Dictaphone in the car. I use voice memos a lot when I'm dog walking. How about you, Steven?

[Martha Beck]

I'm sort of the opposite, Linda. Maybe the first 10 years of my struggling to be a writer, I only wrote about my own self and it was just terrible. And at one point when I was like, ready, literally ready to hang myself, I just sort of came to this epiphany and I said, I am never writing about myself ever again. I'm never going to write about anybody I know. I'm never going to write about any event that actually happened. That I'm going to make everything up from now on. And that really changed everything for me. And I've sort of kept to that, except I'm just finishing a book now that actually is kind of autobiographical, which was fun, but it really was totally freeing to me. Really changed everything for me to not journal or not talk about myself. Because I think when you invent it all completely, then the muse can really come in there and in fact, that she has to, because otherwise how are you going to make it up? I love that.

[Stephen Pressfield]

I love that.

[Martha Beck]

Yeah.

[Stephen Pressfield]

I don't want to cut Stephen off, but I also think that it's really worth mentioning that there was a huge wave of enthusiasm for memoir after I mentioned it before. Eat Pray, Love, like this huge success. And because I wrote two memoirs, I get a lot of memoirs from people who've written them up, some published more of them not. And if you have a really, really powerful story to tell and you really know you need to tell it, absolutely journal it and write a memoir. But I have found with the people that I see, they're not coming to me as a guru like they do to you, Linda, but they're having a lot more trouble getting published. And that, yes, rejection letters say we've.

[Linda Sievertson]

Had too much, too much memoir. I've heard the same.

[Stephen Pressfield]

Too many people who are finding their wild ass self in the whatever that it starts to feel very redundant. And I love what Stephen said about just like I'm going exactly the opposite direction, because sometimes exactly the opposite direction is exactly what the field needs and what will catch readers in a place where they're not expecting and give them a wonderful surprise.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, I tried to do that with this book originally. Beautiful Writers started out as my midlife mess, which Aditi read many years ago. It was a full memoir. Oh, my gosh, Martha, you read it and you actually really liked it, which was Funny, because, remember, I was going to New York. I read the whole thing the night before I left, and I didn't like it because I had been editing it piecemeal and hadn't read the whole nine hours in one sitting. So you had, and you really liked it. And we were on the phone and I said, martha, I don't like it right now, and here's why. And when I told you what I didn't like about it, you were like, oh, yeah, Yeah, I think you're right, Linda, don't go. Remember, you were like, don't go. And I'm thinking, how do I not go? My agent has meetings set up in New York. So anyway, I went and it was a mess. I should not have taken those meetings. I should have listened to Martha. And I write about that in this book. Never go against Martha.

[Stephen Pressfield]

But it wasn't the writing. It was your instincts. I was just validating your instincts. You know, like, to me, it's all about that.

[Linda Sievertson]

Yeah, sure. But what was so cool about it now, when I look back, is that I had the mission, I had the motivation, I had the desire, I had the stories. It just wasn't the right format. I was thinking over the years, what can I do that's different? I never want to write a writing book that is trying to be bird by bird or writing down the bones. The best writing books have been done. I don't know how to do that. But what hasn't been done? What if we take memoir, like On Writing with Stephen King, and we mix it with Stephen, Aditi, Martha and Elizabeth? Has anyone done that before? No. So without actually comparing myself to Stephen King, I do think there is always a way. Again, back to the desire. If you've really got that burning desire, there is a way to make what you have different and fresh. But, boy, it might take you some time. And not everybody has that ability to hang with something that long.

[Martha Beck]

That's the trick, for sure.

[Linda Sievertson]

Yeah, Like Stephen hanging for 17 years before he sold a piece. Like, that's a little bit of a mental disorder. And I love that about you. I think there is one more topic I want to cover. In the chapter of the Power of Shared Belief at dt, you talk about renting a house in Palm Springs with some writing friends, and you guys are living close to the bone. This was not an easy thing to do, but it was incredibly powerful for your creativity. Martha, Steven, do either of you have any kind of group effort with your writing? Or do you both just do this mostly in solitude?

[Martha Beck]

Martha, go Ahead.

[Stephen Pressfield]

Well, I had an amazing surprise myself when I realized that my oldest child is an incredible editor. Writer. Plot. Doctor. Yes, she is. She is. And I didn't have any writer friends, so I made one. And it's maybe because we shared 50% of the same genes. So it's fun to write with her. But after I started working with her, she upped my game so much that I started connecting with writers who were that sharp and allowing them in. If she hadn't been so close to me, I don't think I ever would have opened up that space to other people. But now I have. My incredible partner. Rowan Mangan is a fantastic writer.

[Linda Sievertson]

Holy smokes.

[Stephen Pressfield]

Liz Gilbert and I read each other our chapters over the phone. I opened that door a crack because it was someone so intimate. And then what happened was somebody mentioned fractaling a minute ago. It was as if it created a fractal of that relationship. And after 30 years, writing stopped being a solitary occupation for me. And that has been. I never thought that would happen, but it's wonderful.

[Linda Sievertson]

And Steven, you have that with Sean Coyne.

[Martha Beck]

Yeah, he's been a great editor and companion to me, that's for sure.

[Linda Sievertson]

Your publisher, your first publisher, wasn't he?

[Martha Beck]

Yeah, he's my first. Well, not my first editor, but my second editor for my second book. But I'm going to go the opposite way on this one again. I try to avoid writers, actually, because.

[Linda Sievertson]

We'Re high maintenance, because we're a pain in the ass.

[Martha Beck]

In fact, I'm freaking out just in this group with three people here because it's like, I don't want to know how many good writers are out there and how much competition there is, you know, because right now when I sit down, I can sort of imagine, well, I'm like the only person in the world that's doing this. All I have to do is do a good job and it'll be okay. But it really starts to scare me when I start to realize, oh my God, there's like tens of thousands of wonderful writers out there. How my identity paralyzes me. So I tried to make friendships from time to time, but it, it hasn't worked for me.

[Linda Sievertson]

Well, that's one of the funny things about being at your house in Malibu. You have the most beautiful view I've ever seen. Daniela and I were spellbound, you guys. He lives at the top of a mountain and it's this long single story house that overlooks the cliff and the ocean. It's like something you'd see in a Bond movie. And what does he do? He turns his chair to the frickin wall and writes staring at the wall.

[Martha Beck]

But the reason, as you guys know, it's all in here, right? This is where we live. So I don't want to look out at a view.

[Linda Sievertson]

Yeah, yeah. Your inspiration is all in your head. Well, I think the thing that made you so determined and dogged those 17 years that you were not selling, Stephen, is that you were driven by a mission. And you were right. Time has borne out that your work stands the test of time. Your books are timeless classics. So before we close, I'd like to talk about the mission underneath your writing. What drives you?

[Martha Beck]

I'm definitely a believer in the Muse. I believe there's another dimension of reality that's above this one. And that that's where ideas come to us from. And so if you ask me what my occupation is, I would say I'm a servant of the muse. And my only question when I finish one book is, what's the next assignment? And I figure it's coming in from the goddess and my job is just to do it. I was thinking, did you guys ever see a movie called Save the Tiger starring Jack Lemmon?

[Linda Sievertson]

No. Remember, I don't watch movies.

[Martha Beck]

This is just a short story. And actually Jack Lemmon won his only Oscar for this movie. And in the movie he plays a guy who owns a garment business, an apparel business in la. And he's hanging on by his fingernails. The business is about to go under and he does all these things to make it survive. He gets arson, he's getting hookers for people. And at one point one of another character says to him, what is it that you want, man? I mean, what do you want? He says, another season. And that's kind of how I feel, you know, I just want another season. And the season is defined for me by whatever the goddess wants me to do. So that's my mission. That's how I look at it. I don't have any message I'm trying to get across. Because one book for me is so different from the other. I just try to do whatever I'm assigned.

[Linda Sievertson]

One of my favorite lines in the book is that you say, I always say that the Muse is the only female in my life that I've always been faithful to, and the only one who's always been faithful to me.

[Martha Beck]

That's true.

[Linda Sievertson]

How about you guys? Aditi, Martha.

[Aditi Khurana]

I should preface this by saying, Stephen and Martha, I am such a. I know you must hear this all the time, but I have to say it. I'm such a huge fan of your work, Stephen. When I first started out, wore up art. And again, I know you must hear this all the time. For me, I would just open it up and it was like, in those early stages, you're just trying to figure out how to write a book. As I've moved past it, I think, you know, I published a couple of books now.

[Linda Sievertson]

I think Movie Options, Teaching. Yeah, you've done a lot, sweetie.

[Aditi Khurana]

I've had a lot of fun. I've had a lot of fun, but it's also significant.

[Linda Sievertson]

Book deals. Sorry, go ahead.

[Aditi Khurana]

It's also been, you know, like, there have been challenges, and I think for me, it has been about opening these doors into unknown realms of the unconscious and these spaces. You start to realize, even with, like, book tours are really fun and teaching is really fun, and all of this is sort of. It's fun, but it's on kind of like a material plane. But there is this exalted feeling, almost like falling in love. When you are at that place that Elizabeth was talking about, when you're right at the end and the ideas are coming in and they're making sense and you're growing almost like new neural connections, and you're in spaces that you haven't been in before. And that venturing into the unknown is something that I have become obsessed with that feeling. And it is exalted, and it is like falling in love. And I will do anything to get there. Sometimes it takes years and so much work and so many drafts, but I think that's why we keep chasing it. You spoke, Linda, a little bit earlier about how, you know, 17 years working on something like this. I came from a background in entertainment marketing, and I wanted to be a writer. And I do think it takes some level of pathology. And I do, too. You just know how to transmute that pathology.

[Martha Beck]

Is that true?

[Linda Sievertson]

Yeah, it is.

[Aditi Khurana]

And so I guess maybe it is a pathology, but it served me well, and I hope it continues to.

[Linda Sievertson]

Martha, is it a pathology?

[Stephen Pressfield]

Definitely, yeah. I used to say PhD stands for pathologically Helpful Disorder. I actually never set out to be a writer. I wanted to be a naturalist or I wanted to be a painter. There were a lot of things I wanted to be. And by the time I was about 17, I was not doing well. And I remember sitting in a study, Carol, in the freshman library at Harvard. Lamont, which I called Lament, because kids would sit there and just write despairing messages into the wood of the desks. And I was sitting there and I really did not see any reason to keep going through a life that is by definition going to be difficult and always ends in death. And I was surrounded by all these sad messages from other 17, 18 year olds. And I was like, I don't even know what I'm doing here on Earth. And then I thought, well, Emerson said that beauty is its own excuse for being. And what is beauty? What is the beauty I'm after? I wanted to experience happiness. I wanted to experience something besides this deep despair. And basically my entire life has been about turning that despair into something useful and meaningful and potentially beautiful for myself and others. And it's been a long time since I've been so ridiculously over privileged. So I haven't felt bad for a long time. But every time I do anything and writing is just one of those things, I get up and I check the compass in the morning, the compass inside myself, as Steven said, and just say, okay, how can I help today? And very often writing is one of the things that I can do to help that day. But it's never all day. It's maybe two hours during the day. And the rest of the time it's like, where else can I help? Where else can I help? So I definitely have pathologically helpful disorder. And the amazing punchline is that I set out to just be of service and instead I've been so beautifully served. The real bliss of the process.

[Aditi Khurana]

Yeah.

[Linda Sievertson]

Oh, God, that makes me so happy. This is making me think back to the power of shared belief chapter where I say, these days, when I think of support groups, I envision trees in a forest. The roots a jumble of interconnections deep beneath the surface of the soil. And then I talk about. In his best selling book, the Hidden Life of Trees, the author writes that trees and human communities are alike in their advantages of working together. You all have taught me so much about how to be a more beautiful writer, how to enjoy the process more, how to be sane as I do it, how to be hopeful about the state of my work, the industry and the world at large. And I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful to you guys and this just couldn't have been more enjoyable for me. Thank you for helping me celebrate.

[Martha Beck]

All right, Congratulations.

[Stephen Pressfield]

Thank you.

[Martha Beck]

Hang out with you guys.

[Linda Sievertson]

All right. Well, guys, that's a wrap. It is with a very full heart that I share my book, baby, with you. I hope you're able to get a copy and that you love her and that beautiful writers brings a world of beauty to your writing experience. If at any time you find yourself feeling out of your league or in intimidated by what you don't yet know, I hope that my coming of career, dreams, adventures and misadventures will support you to find and believe in your own path. No matter where you are in your process, I believe you can and will finish your masterpiece. Or maybe many of them. I've seen it over and over. Even for those of us who have quote unquote no business dreaming so big. As I say in beautiful writers, if you have the ache, you have what it takes. Speaking of what it takes, Huge thank yous to my fabulous guests today. What a lovely, lovely book birthday. To be sure and catch upcoming episodes of this show, subscribe if you haven't already. And I am never gonna be mad if you want to leave some lovely stars or sweet thoughts on itunes or wherever you listen to us. In case you don't know 5 star book reviews on Goodreads or your favorite indie bookstore site or Amazon.com these are lifeblood to us creatives, so thank you for sharing your love. If you feel so moved and follow me on social media or sign up for my newsletter@book mama.com for news on upcoming virtual and bookstore events for beautiful writers. Touring has definitely changed in the age of COVID and many authors I know. Homebodies like me have a newfound love of Zoom City and it's wonderful to be in the same city too. So I am working on some in person events and will post them shortly. Big thanks. Thanks to Kevin Baker at Red Room Sound, who's about to get very busy pulling celeb snippets for the audiobook which sold at auction and will be produced in the very near future. I'm an audiobook freak and I so look forward to recording this. Despite all the work ahead. I will keep you posted on our official release date until next time. Right on.