This Article

If your life includes the pursuit of creativity, you need to read this (even if you’re not a novelist. It will apply to you, too. I promise). The article grew from 150 weekly interviews with authors who discussed their creative process. There are dozens of takeaways, but these are the two that most deeply resonated with me:

…Novelists are masters of one skill primarily. Their genius lies in an ability to suspend their skepticism over the long haul, to persist in the belief that—no matter how hard things get—the work is meaningful, and worthwhile, and will one day pan out.

Literary art is produced through the dogged acceptance of short-term floundering.

Those 150 interviews have been compiled into a book called Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process. You better believe I now own a copy.