Josh Ritter has a way with metaphor. It’s one of the literary touches in his music that have established him among the cream of the young singer-songwriter crop, and it is all over his albums: romantic diplomacy in a missile silo; Columbus’s doomed fourth ship; a mummy whose curse is the realization that love is mortal.

It was no big surprise, then, that in describing the creative crisis that led to his new album, “So Runs the World Away” (Pytheas), Mr. Ritter, 33, chose a particularly striking image.

“When you’re getting started, you’re like a baby horse getting shot through a cannon,” he said, seated at his kitchen table in Brooklyn and gesturing to illustrate the momentum of the projectile. “You either land running or you don’t. That initial shot is really exhilarating, but then you have to decide: What are you doing this for, and how are you going to keep going?”

For a decade now, Mr. Ritter has been running steadily, guitar in hand. His songs, built from simple, folky patterns into sharp vignettes or sprawling Whitmanesque meditations, have won over many critics, as well as what might be called the soft-rock establishment: NPR, Starbucks and noncommercial radio stations. Sales of his albums have been modest. But by courting fans for the long haul at a time when short-lived blog attention is often the yardstick for success, he has become a model for the way artists sustain careers in the wide middle zone between stardom and obscurity.