Stamina. Is this the secret to getting where you want to be? asks Alexander Chee

 "“What do you think, having taught writers for a while, is the thing that makes the big difference? What separates the students who go on to become writers from the students who don’t?”

“Stamina,” I said, very quickly. Persistence is the gift that brings all the others. I know many writers with a great deal of talent who do not write. Art is not fair, it is not democratic, it has no court of appeals. Talent is not equally apportioned, but luckily it also doesn’t matter as much as stamina. There is little science to it all that is reliable except that I have seen persistence carry the day over talent again and again."
read the entire blog post here

Says Alexander Chee, author of the thought provoking debut novel 'Edinburgh'. It spoke to me. I keep meeting people who say they have a book and that one day they will write it. I also meet people who say they have a book and write even if its only one line a day. Both sets of people have day jobs and kids and doubts and other interruptions, yet guess who will end up having written their story?
And the secret might very well be stamina-- to write your book, to get through life, to get through rejection, to get through yet another draft when you thought the last draft was perfect.