Do the Work

the leg, fighting a whale.
     
Not just any whale, but Moby Dick himself.
     
Let Ahab tramp the quarterdeck nightlong, obsessed with vengeance—and let the echo of that whale-ivory leg resound through the crew’s quarters below like a knell of madness.
     
Add a crazed white streak running through Ahab’s hair and beard, as if metaphysical hatred-lightning had carved a scar upon his soul.
     
Add beats to heighten Ahab’s obsession. Here’s one: When the Pequod passes another whaling vessel, the Rachel , which has just seen and fought Moby Dick and lost beloved members of the crew, including the captain’s son, for whom they’re searching now, let Ahab spurn all appeals for help and drive his own ship faster in pursuit of the white whale.
     
Let Ahab renounce his whaling contract and denounce the for-profit nature of the voyage. The hell with killing other whales for their oil! Ahab will hunt Moby Dick for vengeance alone!
     
     
    These changes are helping. Ahab is much better than he was before, with two good legs and regular hair. But we need more.
     
    We need to take the theme one level deeper …
     
    The story can’t just be about “the clash between man’s will and the malice of nature.” That’s not enough. It must add the element of man-as-part-of-nature-himself. So that Man is dueling the evil inside himself and being consumed by it.
     
    Again, “What’s missing?”
     
    The involvement of the crew! If Ahab is the only crazy person aboard and the crew meekly follows him, that’s no good. The men must become as obsessed as their captain.
     
    A new scene. Ahab assembles the crew and forges new harpoons, made not for other whales but only to kill Moby Dick.
     
    “Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let me touch the axis.” [Ahab pours the full voltage of his own electric hate, by the medium of his hand, into the lances of his three harpooneers.] “Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear … Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!”
     
     
    That’s Why They Call It Rewriting, Part Two
     
    Does the prior Ahab scenario sound far-fetched? Melville was a genius, you say; he could never fail to realize a character to the fullest on his first try.
     
    Maybe. Probably. But if this didn’t happen to HM then, I promise you it happened to him other times. And it happened to a million other guys and gals, over and over and over.
     
    No matter how great a writer, artist, or entrepreneur, he is a mortal, he is fallible. He is not proof against Resistance. He will drop the ball; he will crash.
     
    That’s why they call it rewriting.
     
    The Point for Us
     
    The point for you and me is that we have passed through hell. We have worked our problem.
     
    We have solved it.
     
    We have escaped from the belly of the beast.
     



 
    Killer Instinct
     
    Why does Seth Godin place so much emphasis on “shipping”?
     
    Because finishing is the critical part of any project. If we can’t finish, all our work is for nothing.
     
    When we ship, we declare our stuff ready for prime time. We pack it in a FedEx box and send it out into the world. Our movie hits the screens, our smart phone arrives in the stores, our musical opens on Broadway.
     
    It takes balls of steel to ship.
     
    Here’s a true nugget from The War of Art:
     
    I had a good friend who had labored for years and had produced an excellent and deeply personal novel. It was done. He had it in its mailing box, complete with cover letter to his agent. But he couldn’t make himself send it off. Fear of rejection unmanned him.
     
     
    Shipping is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart. It requires killer instinct. We’ve got the monster down; now we have to drive a stake through its heart.
     
    Hamlet and Michael Crichton
     
    How hard is it to finish something? The greatest drama in the English language was written on this very subject. Hamlet knows he must kill his uncle for murdering his father. But then he starts to think—and the next thing you know, the poor prince is so self-befuddled, he’s ready to waste himself with a bare bodkin.
     
    Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
     
    And thus the native hue of resolution
     
    Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
     
    And enterprises of great pitch and moment
     
    With this regard their currents turn awry,
     
    And lose the name of action.
     
    When Michael Crichton approached the end of a