The Proposal, Part 3: Why? This is the transcript for the fifth video in the twelve-part series “Writing The Lion’s Gate,” featuring Steve Pressfield and Shawn Coyne discussing The Lion’s Gate’s road to publication. Shawn: As I recall, I did say to you after that initial jab you took at the proposal that it didn’t have a throw-down statement, And you were a little unsure of what I meant by that. I think this is what I said to you, “You need to explain to the editor why, why you’re writing this book.” Steve: Ah. Shawn: Because you need them to understand that this isn’t just Pressfield’s way of making cash for the next year or so. This is a life thing—and boy did you deliver on that. Steve: That’s true. That was what you were talking about, a throw-down statement. And the statement was—let me take a long way around to that thing—was that I knew the external story here, the action story here, was warriors breaking through, fighting, getting in, capturing, bada boom. Right? But, what’s the internal story? And it also had to be a story that was not specific to Jews only. Shawn: That’s right. Steve: It had to transcend that, so what was the story? The story was—to me, again, this goes back to theme, we’re asking again what’s the theme? What’s this about? And the theme was—return from exile. Shawn: That’s right. Steve: That even though there was a state of Israel for nineteen years before this war, that state did not have the old city of Jerusalem. That was in Arab hands. It was Jordanian behind barbed wire and everything and in the old city of Jerusalem were the holiest sites of Judaism. So it was an incomplete return home after two thousand years. You know, you had everything except the center, the soul center. So that sort of answered the question—Why the Six Day War? Why not the Yom Kippur War? Why not the War of Joshua in 4,000 BC, or whatever it is? Why not, you know…whatever? The answer to that was: None of those wars ended with the capture, the liberation, of the holiest site in Judaism after two thousand years of not being…you know. And all of the pogroms and the Holocaust and everything, all because the Jewish people had no homeland, and they were strangers in a strange land. So here was getting that homeland back, or at least the crucial part of it. It doesn’t apply just to the Jewish people. I thought, this also applies to any individual…any individual…that we are all in a state of exile, right? And what we’re exiled from…and this is what Black Irish is all about…is that the center of our being, you know. It’s like … That was the equivalent of the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall, the holiest site. And just as we each, as an individual, need to find who we are, right? If we’re gay, we have to embrace the fact that we’re gay. If we’re black, or whatever you want to say, we have to embrace that, right? And when you embrace it, it’s always through adversity. Nobody hands it to you. The United Nations doesn’t come over and give it to you, right? You have to take it by force of arms. That’s what the Jewish people, the IDF, did. They broke through the Lion’s Gate and they seized it. So I knew that… So the throwdown statement for me here was—thanks to you guiding me was—this was…I have written about wars of other peoples, but never about my own people. And so the big statement for me was, I’m a Jewish writer, I’m a Jew. This is for me, this is my odyssey as well as the book. It is…it’s my return from exile as well. Just as the paratroopers got to the Western Wall, the writing of this book is going to be my statement for that thing. And then I think I finished it up with something…“and don’t forget that I am circumcised, and I’m going to do a great job”…or something like that. But in any event— Shawn: [laughing] I walk the walk as well as talk the talk. Steve: That was the…and I remember we thought, should we cut that sentence out, you know? So that was the throw-down statement thanks to you. You’re right. So that was absolutely necessary. Shawn: They gobbled it up. Steve: Absolutely. Because in a way what it is, is this throw-down statement is, “Why Steve Pressfield? Why him? Why this guy? Why not…you know? Shawn: And it stops the lady saying, “Eh, he’s not a journalist…” Steve: Right. Yeah. Shawn: And it did. Steve: Yeah. So but that, I think, probably applies to any statement, right? You wonder why this subject and why this writer, right? If you can answer those questions… Shawn: Exactly. Steve: And probably, why now, at this time? Next Time: Steve: The book proposal served, as well as selling the book, as a foolscap page for me, the writer, so I knew what I was doing. Shawn: You mean I wasn’t the hero of your story? [laughter] Click to watch the sixth video in this series: The Proposal, Part 4: Foolscap.