I was listening to a fascinating interview on the Tim Ferriss podcast with Brian Koppleman: screenwriter of Rounders, Ocean's Thirteen, and The Illusionist. [Not to be a total Tim Ferriss fanboy -- but if you're a creator of any kind, there is no better resource than his material .]

When asked about his morning rituals prior to writing, Koppleman said something profound:

“Everyday, it’s about building a practice that enables you to try and forget that you’re afraid."

That's an amazing admission from a man as accomplished as Brian Koppleman. A Hollywood screenwriter, director, and producer literally calls pre-creation rituals what they are: systems to temporarily ignore your fear of failure and rejection.

My morning pre-writing/transcribing ritual is to make coffee, and quickly clean my house. I've been doing it for years, subconsciously telling myself that I need a clean environment to be productive.

Really, it's just a stall tactic. Although it's become much easier, every post I do is a process of overcoming my fear of failure and rejection. Especially with my original music. Even still, it does get easier to put yourself out there.

Creating, and creating often is the key. Typically -- as soon as I believe a particular post will blow minds and transcend the space-time continuum, it falls flat on it's face. Received only by white noise and crickets.

However, for every one of those, there's a strangely successful post that comes out of nowhere -- well after the fact. As of today, that's In the House in a Heartbeat. Written almost one year ago, I'm only now receiving inexplicable traffic to that post.

No one bats a thousand all the time, but if your general trajectory is moving in the right direction, that's all that really matters.

(Note Ender's Game is my premium content. Please comment to let me know what you think, or if you have any questions.)

How to play Dragon Army, the theme from Ender's Game, for classical guitar

Normally, I would never retroactively work on a movie soundtrack. There's not a strong interest in it beyond the movie's initial release. For blog traffic purposes, it's much better to post prior to the film release date.

However, I just saw Ender's Game and the music theme repeated throughout the film was awesome. I can't believe I overlooked this when Ender's Game was released a few months ago.

After scanning the soundtrack, the main theme is really encompassed in the song, Dragon Army.

The guitar tab for Dragon Army is concisely written between two pages. I've also divided the tab according to chord position to make it easier to understand. Save for the final chord position, I would characterize Dragon Army as easy to play.

Enjoy, the tab is available below: