(This post originally appeared at StoryWarren.com)
It’s harder to write a meaningful radio song than a thoughtful album; when you have only three minutes to make your point, it’s easier to be catchy than deep.
It can be harder to write a short story than a novel; you need to accomplish the same things – character development, rising conflict, resolution – in less than 1% of the space.
It is unlikely that you will change someone’s mind in a single argument, no matter how brilliant and beautiful your rhetoric; so debates often come in sets of three.
In the ordinary course of things, the longer you have with your audience, the more likely you are to leave them with something meaningful. Time and repetition are an artist’s friend.
And then there is parenting: Eighteen years to love, to communicate, to share beauty, to try, and go back and try again – and again, and again. It’s a phenomenally potent art. Not despite all the time it takes, but because of it.