Who: Guy Snodgrass

Claim To Fame:  Guy Snodgrass is a former fighter pilot and TOPGUN Instructor turned author and executive speechwriter and communications director. He is the founder and CEO of Defense Analytics, a strategic advisory and consulting firm, and author of Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis. Guy has written for the Washington Post, USA Today, and Politico, and has appeared on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and others as a national security and foreign policy expert.

Where To Find Guy: Amazon, Twitter, LinkedIn

Praise For Guy: “This is the memoir America wishes Jim Mattis had written.” — The Washington Post

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When and where do you like to write? Are you the same-thing-every-day kind of writer or can you write anytime, anywhere?

My first few years as a writer occurred while still serving as an active duty naval officer (a fighter pilot, of all things). When I wasn’t flying fighter planes, I found myself whisked into jobs working as a speechwriter for a four-star admiral running the U.S. Navy, followed by another job working as communications director and chief speechwriter for then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis. The military is unique, in that officers have career diversity. We have “at sea jobs,” which typically means you’re deployed on a ship overseas, and “ashore jobs,” which is where you spend a year or two flying a desk.

The military being what it is—driven and demanding, with a 24/7/365 mentality—means that you have to be able to write anytime and anyplace. I even found myself writing a speech to be delivered to the State Department from the cafeteria in a hospital while my dad was undergoing surgery. Not ideal, but I’m thankful that I was able to write flexibly, irrespective of time and place.

Much of this ability centers around my lifelong adherence to stoicism, a philosophy popularized by the writings of Marcus Aurelius, an emperor of Rome. Aurelius believed in taking the world as it is, not as you wish it to be. A helpful worldview when serving in the military, and doubly helpful when you realize that deadlines cannot be fought against. Far better to simply adjust accordingly and perform as well as possible given any situation.

This shifted somewhat when I retired from the Navy in 2018.

Now, better able to control my own destiny, I prefer to write late at night and early into the morning. I use the day to research and read, mulling over how I feel about a topic or contemplating how I want to write to bridge the divide between a certain subject matter and the audience I’m writing for. Then, once the family has gone to sleep, I can usually find the clarity and peace required to write quickly.

Could you talk about that researching process and how you collect and organize material from your reading that you may want to dedicate more time to thinking over or writing about?

I’m very self-conscious about writing if I don’t feel that I’m an expert. This is a natural offshoot from my military background, where we’re trained to only speak (or write) if it’s from a position of strength, which means that it should be underpinned by facts. Because of this, I pursue an extensive period of research, casting a wide net to pull in as much information that I can find during a first pass literature review. I usually print, staple, and underline each of these passages. In many cases, this means I wind up with a hundred or more packets to read through and consider.

On my second pass, I only retain the material that I feel provides depth to the project. These are then hole-punched and put into several three ring binders for each of access as I write. The rest of the print outs typically head into the circular file.

This differs from my writing process, where I like to lay entire draft chapters out on the floor or on the dining room table, a technique I picked up from my last boss, Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Doing so enables me to take in the entire chapter in one glance, which works wonders when considering overall flow and length. Viewing all the pages at the same time helps to highlight weak areas, portions that are repetitive, or “systematic” issues like a weak opening or closing, or poor transitions.

It’s a system that has served me very well.

Do you have any pre-writing rituals or habits before you sit down to write?

I write best when listening to electronic dance music. There’s something about the fast tempo that enables me to zone out and focus solely on writing.

It’s funny how habits form. I can point back to high school and grad school, where I would listen to loud music while writing my thesis or writing software (I was a computer programmer for many years). Something about wearing headphones, listening to music, and shutting out the external world enables me to write very quickly.

Do you struggle at all with that dreaded enemy of writing: writer’s block? Do you think such a thing exists?

Yes, I do.

I originally thought it was just because I wanted to procrastinate on assignments. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow, right?

But I’ve come to learn that I have to be in a certain mental space to write. I have friends who can sit down and write for 2-3 hours at a time, every day, without fail. In my case, I tend to agonize internally over my subject matter and my approach to it. I can’t just sit down at a keyboard and write—it feels too wasteful if it’s undirected.

Instead, I think deeply about the material. At some point, usually after a day or two, I’m primed and ready to go. At that point, I can write late into the night for about 4-5 days before needing to step away and think again.

Although a bit sporadic, the process bears fruit. I was able to write my first book, clocking in a ~340 pages, in just over 2-1/2 months using this method.

When did your aspirations to become a writer begin?

I’ve written sporadically since I was a child, but I didn’t really enjoy writing until college, and that was largely computer code while programming. There was something elegant about taking hard to understand subjects and then writing in a way that others could interact and learn from.

At some level, I’ve wanted to write since I was young. As a voracious reader, I marveled at how some of my favorite authors: Isaac Asimov, Tom Clancy, Robert Jordan, and Walter Isaacson, among many others, could write books that both educated and engaged the reader. The best books, in my mind, are the ones that you fall into, that can draw you into the story.

I genuinely wanted to become a better writer after attending the U.S. Naval War College. Donna Connolly, a professor and director of their writing center, was generous in spending time with me as I focused deliberately on improving my abilities. That year made all the difference.

You were a speechwriter for former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Can you tell us about your process for drafting a speech—how you keep the writing in the voice of the person you’re writing for, how you think about the audience you’re writing for, etc.?

Mattis was easy to write for.

We shared a common background (both military members and “warfighters”, operators who have experienced combat). Moreover, Mattis has years’ worth of his own writings, speeches, and interviews, which made the process of learning his thoughts and worldview relatively easy. And, like me, Mattis has also adhered to stoicism throughout his career path. It’s easy to write for someone when you can spend more time on the subject matter and less time on trying to modify your writings to match someone else’s.

My thoughts were recently published in a book about the Pentagon. I was asked to write the chapter on speechwriting, and I broke the process down into four “chunks.”

First, “Know Your Boss.”  Study them closely, focusing on their persona (learning their voice) as well as their preferences (how they like to communicate). You’ll never succeed if you’re fighting your boss.

Second, “Know Your Outcome.”  Put simply, what are you trying to achieve? Knowing the desired outcome leads to a strategy, and a strategy will align all of your resources and efforts to achieving the desired outcome. If you know your destination, it’s hard to be driven off course by distractions.

Third, “Know Your Audience.”  Who is your boss speaking to? What is their worldview, and what do they expect to hear? How can you shape the speech so that you can provide your message while doing so in a way that the audience can accept?

Finally, “Know the Message.”  The remarks are the vehicle that will bridge the divide between your boss, the audience, and the desired outcome. This is where developing a compelling writing style becomes helpful.  It also means understanding how to be repetitious in a good way.  As the saying goes, “Tell the audience what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you’ve told them.” Along with the positives come the negative—be wary of any “third rails” that will immediately turn off your audience. An unreceptive audience is less likely to accept what you have to say, unless you are being provocative on purpose.

Holding The Line is your first book. Did you find your routine and process differ at all versus how you approached speechwriter?

The overall process was similar in many ways.

In 2014, I wrote a white paper on talent management and retention for the U.S. Navy that went viral, primarily because it was seen as daring to call senior leaders into question.

That experience backed up the worldview I’ve held about writing ever since: write about something the audience is naturally interested in, underpin it with facts and research, then wrap the entire thing in a compelling narrative. It’s a way of looking at the art of writing that works for me.

For the book, I went a few steps further, considering how a mass audience was likely to perceive it. I also considered the second and third order effects—how would the book play over the course of years?  Would it stand the test of time? Considering these questions led me down a significantly different path than just a quick, one-shot story.

What were some of the key lessons you learned that you would apply to a future book project?

The sheer importance of research and networking while writing a book.

I reached out to hundreds of mentors and others that I respected, including other authors. I realized quickly that I wanted to learn as much about the process of writing a book as I could, in order to use others’ experiences to guide my efforts.

This approach paid off handsomely. It resulted in a much better work than I would have been capable of on my own, and I forged some terrific friendships along the way.

What books or writers have most influenced the way you think and the way you write?

I was a voracious reader at a young age. When I was eight or nine, I started in on sci-fi books by Isaac Asimov and mystery books by Stephen King. I also enjoyed immersive platforms like Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series (14 books!) that spans around 10,000 pages. Neil Stevenson is another long-form writer that I enjoy. I’m fascinated by writers that have the ability to really draw you into a good narrative, the type of book that you fall into and become totally engrossed by.

This passion for fiction writing informs my own writing on non-fiction subjects, pursuing a path that is equally informative as it is enjoyable and entertaining. 

Some of my favorite resources and reads are:

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Grant by Ron Chernow

Kissinger by Walter Isaacson

Make Your Bed by Admiral Bill McRaven

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Principles by Ray Dalio

Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History by William Safire

And because of my military and policy background, I also enjoy works from General Dwight Eisenhower, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and presidential historians such as Jon Meacham.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

The same advice that I often gave to the young fighter pilots and Sailors that I led for many years: Remember, nothing worthwhile is ever easy.

If you want to be good at something, stick with it. Learn as much as you can. Build diverse networks and be fearless in asking others for help or support. You’ll be amazed at the sheer number of people who are willing to help you achieve your fullest potential.

When it comes to something you’re passionate about… never, ever, give up.

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