But let me, mostly to torture myself, take a step back in time and think wistfully about my desk, and my office, as it was B.H. (Before Harry). My desk is a solid mission-style oak antique, not particularly big, but with nice cubbies on the sides and a drawer filled with all sorts of random things, but the one that springs to mind is a river rock given to me by a dreamy Portuguese guy I slept with while on a bike tour of the Alentejo. (Again, B.H. Sigh.) One wall is covered with bookshelves, with books double stacked. There’s a window that looks across a tree-filled back yard and into the rear of the brownstones across the way, in, well, a Rear Window sort of set-up, which is why I keep my back to it.  I can’t write facing a window. I often go to a writers’ retreat in Ireland called Anam Cara, and I end up closing the curtains in my room because otherwise I just watch the cows chew grass for hours. 

     To the right of my desk on the wall is a huge corkboard, I’d say four feet by six or so. The Big Board, as I think of it, has 5 by 7 index cards with scenes and moments and big-picture structural elements thumb-tacked all over it. Sometimes colored markers get involved, making it a great time waster. There’s a desk lamp from Pottery Barn, and a wooden tray to my right with a coffee cup and a Diet Coke.

     My favorite office things: the two volume Oxford English Dictionary, a rolling library-style book caddy from the Levenger catalog, a sign my sister painted for me that says "Solvitur Ambulando" ("It is solved by walking"), an old framed head shot of a 70s-era Woody Allen, and hatboxes containing scraps of paper pertaining to various present and future projects.

     Let’s see, what else. Music is often playing, and my husband often reminds me my taste in writing music is pretty drippy: Windham-Hill-y type stuff, or – and I have no idea how I got on this particular kick – Celtic Christmas instrumentals. I’m also big into smelly candles, and what with the music and the candles and the smells and the evocative Portuguese sex rocks, my writing room resembles nothing so much as a New Age bookstore. The only thing missing is a Zen desk fountain – believe me, I’ve been tempted – but I’m afraid it would make me perpetually need to pee. 

     Okay. Back to the present. I’m in Starbucks at 86^th and Columbus, a few blocks from my apartment. Harry is at home with Claudia, who takes care of him every day from 9:30am to 1:30pm, so I can write. At my feet is a truly geeky black backpack with a label that proclaims it the Z Force. I’ve got my white MacBook, no wireless internet, and a vente coffee. It’s doable. I can work this way. I can focus. 

     I hear a baby crying. But it’s not my baby. I take a sip of coffee and keep writing…

In the mid seventies, a New York copywriter looked down at the text he wrote for the label of Gravy Train dog food, and asked himself, Shouldn't I be doing something a little more worthwhile? The answer was an emphatic Yes!, so he decided to quit his job to write a novel.

Within three years, he found himself broke and divorced. To make a living, he drove cabs, tended bar, taught school, drove semis, worked on oil rigs and picked fruit, among other things.

He also succeed in completing three novels in his spare time, but failed in finding a publisher. It was a depressing, frustrating time for the aspiring novelist. He began to think he would never become a professional, one who could shrug off the odd jobs and write full time. And it was during these down times that he sought solace in Gandhi's favorite book, The Bhagavad-Gita.

Meaning "Son of God," The Bhagavad-Gita is revered as a sacred scripture of Hinduism, and considered one of the most important religious classics of the world. Commonly referred to as The Gita, it contains the conversation between Krishna (the Divine One) and the archer Arjuna on the battlefield of the Kurukshetra War. Arjuna does not want to fight his step-brothers and cousins for the kingdom because he believes that war is futile and that it would be better to die than to fight one's family. Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a warrior and prince—it is a righteous war—and elaborates on different philosophies with examples and analogies.

One day the aspiring novelist and faithful reader of The Gita had an epiphany: rip it off and make it a golf story!

"I knew I was crazy," he said, "but I had to do it.... The writing of a book, for me, takes two to two and a half years. If you're going to do anything for that long, you have to love it. I search and search till I find an idea that grabs me."

The result of this idea, The Legend Of Bagger Vance, hit the bestseller list in 1995, and Steven Pressfield could forevermore call himself a professional writer.