As I tell my students, persistence is really what this business is all about. It has little to do with talent. Talent's about as valuable as tits on a boar. What is valuable is persistence, determination, drive, desire, patience, indefatigable energy, the willingness to fail, and luck. Never underestimate luck, I tell them. I've been teaching for thirty-six years now, and I've never met a student who didn't have talent. By the same token I can count on one hand the ones who manifest all the qualities I've just listed - and I'd have some fingers left over.

... But why them and not the others, if, as I say, all of them were creative and talented? The answer is simple: some of my students persisted and some did not. Those who did not persist were the ones lacking sufficient interest, drive, and discipline. Those who did persist persisted because they had energy, they had courage (or "sand" as my granddaddy would have put it), and they developed a need to work.



Moser's three rules for the so-called creative life, are, therefore,

Persistence

Indefatigable energy

The habit of work

Source:
In the Face of Presumption, Essays, Speeches & Incidental Writings

by Barry Moser.