On this week's On The X, Chris Irwin sits down with Marine Corps veteran and bestselling author Steven Pressfield to discuss his 27-year road to publication and the craft that shaped novels like Gates of Fire, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and his latest book, The Arcadian. He shares the origin of Gates of Fire’s “battle in the shade” scene, one of the book’s most quoted passages among military readers.

They discuss the inspiration behind Steven’s new novel The Arcadian, reflect on what it takes to tell a compelling story, why discipline wins over inspiration, why “talent is bull****,” and how Steven knows when a piece of work is done.

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