Joyful Persistence: My Talk for the UBC School of Creative Writing Graduation

get comfortable with feeling frustrated and keep going. It’s part of being an artist.

The practice seeks to make change, but the process demands originality. The practice is consistent, but only in intention, not in execution. Every creator who has engaged in the practice has a long, nearly infinite string of failures. All the ways not to start a novel, not to invent the light bulb, not to transform a relationship. Again and again,

Most artists are so busy simply attempting to produce satisfying work or make a living that they forget that, ultimately, they are making work to communicate their own version of the truth. We make work that mirrors our own deeply held ideas about the world.

The career of every successful creative is part of a similar practice: a pattern of small bridges, each just scary enough to dissuade most people. The practice requires a commitment to a series of steps, not a miracle.