Before Dances With Wolves won seven Academy Awards, the man who wrote it was broke, unwanted in Hollywood, sleeping wherever he could—and washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant just to survive. His name was Michael Blake. And one of the few people who refused to completely give up on him was his friend, Kevin Costner. Blake was going through one of the darkest periods of his life. Costner tried to help whenever he could, sending him toward writing opportunities and introducing him to people who might give him a chance. But almost every time, the reports came back badly. Blake was talented, but he could also be difficult. “He pissed everybody off,” Costner later recalled. Eventually, after rejection piled on top of rejection, Blake exploded. “I hate Hollywood. I hate all you people.” Costner had reached his limit too. He told his friend to stop blaming Hollywood for everything and take a harder look at himself and his writing. The argument became so ugly that Costner believed their friendship might be finished. But life had another chapter waiting for them. Blake had almost nothing. At one point, he stayed at Costner’s home while trying to rebuild his life. And while the friendship was still bruised, Blake did the one thing he had always done when everything else was falling apart. He wrote. Night after night. Page after page. Costner wasn’t eager to read it. There was still too much anger between them. Eventually Blake left California and went to Arizona, where his circumstances became even harder. The man dreaming of becoming a successful writer found himself washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant. No glamorous office. No studio deal. No applause. Just stacks of dirty dishes, very little money, and a manuscript he refused to abandon. Blake kept calling Costner. “Have you read what I wrote?” Costner still hadn’t. Yet despite everything that had happened between them, he still cared about his friend. When Blake told him how cold and difficult life had become, Costner sent him a sleeping bag and other supplies. And Blake kept asking the same question. Had he read it? Finally, Costner opened the manuscript. He began reading the pages written by the struggling man he had argued with, housed, helped and almost given up on. The story was called Dances With Wolves. And everything changed. Costner saw something in those pages that years of rejection had failed to destroy. He eventually directed and starred in the film adaptation. At the 1991 Academy Awards, Dances With Wolves received 12 nominations. It won seven Oscars. Best Picture. Best Director for Kevin Costner. And then came one of the most extraordinary endings of all. Michael Blake—the broke writer who had been rejected again and again, the man who had struggled to find somewhere to live, the dishwasher in Arizona who kept writing when almost nobody seemed interested—won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Think about that journey. From washing dishes to holding an Oscar. From hearing “no” again and again to writing a story the world would remember. From nearly losing his friendship with Kevin Costner to standing beside him as both men reached the greatest triumph of their careers. Michael Blake’s life is a reminder that rejection does not always mean you are finished. Sometimes it simply means your story has not reached the right hands yet. Hardship can humiliate you. Failure can exhaust you. People can stop believing. You may even begin doubting yourself. But if there is something inside you that you truly believe deserves to exist, keep working. Because sometimes the distance between the man washing dishes in obscurity and the man standing on an Oscar stage comes down to one brutally simple decision: He kept writing when giving up would have been easier . . . Before Dances With Wolves won seven Academy Awards, the man who wrote it was broke, unwanted in Hollywood, sleeping wherever he could—and washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant just to survive. #NeverGiveUp #FromStruggleToSuccess - @rarehistorydaily