Stories cross all art forms to reach and stir the audience, whether through television, radio, or film, and though these different forms express stories with their own unique mediums, the importance of the story rests in how it is communicated, in how it is translated from an idea to a realized work.

Ira Glass has hosted and produced the award-winning radio show This American Life since 1995, and in this interview on storytelling, he offers the elements that have made his work successful. He explains the two basic building blocks of stories: the anecdote and the moment of reflection. In its purest form, the story is a sequence of actions (anecdote) that is then elevated to a higher form with a central message (moment of reflection) that reveals why the audience is engaging with the story. Good stories bring “anecdote” and “moment of reflection” into harmony.

There are other gems of wisdom presented in the interview. Another confirms: Finding the story takes time! Often the amount of time finding the decent story is more than the amount of time it takes to produce the story, and that if someone wants to do the creative work, you actually have to set aside just as much time for the looking for stories. The storyteller knows that the story dictates its own time of discovery and revelation. Honesty to this understanding shows itself in the final product.

An all important idea for all creatives is also found here: Failure is a big part of success. Much of artmaking is problem solving, which only entails moments of failure that the creative mind must solve by adapting itself to the situation at hand. All things that become memorable adhere to this molding of the self for the sake of the work.

This reflects an inspiration declaration from Ira Glass: What nobody tells people who are beginners–and I really wish someone had told this to me–is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

Watch, learn, and absorb! Successful creativity takes time since art in its essence is a journey, and with that journey comes hard work. Remember: it was after seven years of work and three short films that Orson Welles had the opportunity to direct the now timeless Citizen Kane. For every creative discipline, it is all about the doing.