We were lucky to catch up with Élan Les Vies recently and have shared our conversation below.

Élan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

You know, it’s funny. I’ve been asking myself the same question a lot lately. At the same time, trying to define success. To me, it means getting better and better at my craft.

The only way to do that is to spend hours, days, weeks, months, and even years on a single project. My last novel took me, from concept to completion, about five years to get it just right.

But what that novel mostly taught me was the importance of writing daily, with little to no exceptions. Setting the priority over other tasks, even the more lucrative ones. That’s the only way a craft can pay off.

Having a dream is all-important, the fuel to an engine. But a career can only pick up speed and go the distance when the driver puts in the work, paces oneself, and stops only to re-fuel.

Only the extremely lucky, like nepo-babies, have their dreams come true without devotion to their craft. Devotion is what it takes.

Élan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Sure thing. I am a writer. Sometimes that means music, sometimes that means fiction. But it didn’t always mean those things; to arrive at this conclusion, I followed many paths that led to detours or even dead-ends.

I don’t believe we are born to do certain things; I believe we are tasked to discover what craft most agrees with us. With the things we are born with — our spirit, our personality, our minds, our hands, our strengths, our limitations. This takes time, patience, introspection, and above all, honesty.

Removing the weight of expectations — the shoulds, in other words — isn’t easy, but it is essential for us to choose our path, sincerely.

If I’m proud of anything, it’s the trust I placed in myself and the time I devoted to find that craft.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

For years, nearly a decade, I worked as a graphic designer in concert with my writing — one being more lucrative than the other. But it took me that long to see writing not as a hobby but as an investment for the future. And it took some risks to allot enough time in the day for both. Without doing so, my music, my books would never see the light of day.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Simply put, it’s to thrill.

So much of the writing process is spent in discovery. And when you find something thrilling — about a story or a character — you hope it will equally thrill the reader.

When it does and that enjoyment of the craft comes full circle, from the writing desk out into the world and back, there’s no greater reward. No greater motivation to continue discovering, continue writing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thecoyote.me
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thecoyoteofficial/
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@thecoyoteprowls
• Other: Spotify: spoti.fi/2YNQPea Apple Music: tinyurl.com/AppleMusicTheCoyote

Image Credits
Andres Valentin Lopez @developedbydre