From Wikipedia:

Steven Pressfield was an advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, tractor-trailer driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout, attendant in a mental hospital, fruit-picker in Washington state, and screenwriter. His struggles to make a living as an author, including the period when he was homeless and living out of the back of his car, are detailed in his book The War of Art.

Pressfield’s first book, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was published in 1995, and was made into a 2000 film of the same name directed by Robert Redford and starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Matt Damon.

His second novel, Gates of Fire (1998), is about the Spartans and the battle at Thermopylae. It is taught at the U.S. Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy, and the Marine Corps Basic School at Quantico.

In 2012, Pressfield launched the publishing house Black Irish Books with his agent Shawn Coyne.

His passion emerges when you read his own words. From his About page:

For one season I lived in [a] house [with] no power, no water, no doors, no windows. Rent was $15 a month … All during this time I was writing.

Why do I tell you this?

Because this site is about you learning from my mistakes. It’s about you avoiding the dead ends I drove myself into before I found myself as a writer.

Because the “war of art” is not about genius, it’s about work. We can’t control the level of talent we’ve been given. We have no control over the nature of our gift. What we can control is our self-motivation, our self-discipline, our self-validation, and our self-reinforcement. We can control how hard and how smart we work.

• • Gates of Fire: 1M copies sold worldwide.
  • Legend of Bagger Vance: 450K copies.
  • Tides of War: 125K.
  • The War of Art: 500K.

From my (fictional) 96-year-old literary agent, Marty Fabrikant, as quoted in The Knowledge:

“I’ve seen a million writers with talent. It means nothing. You need guts, you need stick-to-it-iveness. It’s work, you gotta work, do the freakin’ work. That’s why you’re gonna make it, son. You work. No one can take that away from you.”

The work is everything

“And I’ll tell you something else. Appreciate these days. These days when you’re broke and struggling, they’re the best days of your life. You’re gonna break through, my boy, and when you do, you’ll look back on this time and think this is when I was really an artist, when everything was pure and I had nothing but the dream and the work. Enjoy it now. Pay attention. These are the good days. Be grateful for them.”