No-one ever sets out to fail miserably. On the other hand, a common expression is, “you can’t run before you can walk”.
That’s one of the reasons editing was invented. No-one expects first drafts to be perfect, or even close to perfection. Likewise, no-one seriously expects early attempts at writing to be exceptionally good. I still shudder with embarrassment when I remember things I wrote in high school; even more when I know some of them were published in the annual yearbooks. It’s quite possible some of those are tucked away in someone’s drawer or possibly in an attic.
Like creatures in a pulp science fiction story they may yet rise again to haunt me. It takes time, effort and a lot of practice to achieve competency at anything. Writing is NOT an exception.
A stated rule-of-thumb is, it takes 10,000 hours of practice before mastery of a skill is achieved. That works out roughly to three hours a day for ten years. Even then, one may not be successful. I put in those three hours each and every day for ten years when I was attempting to master the guitar and at the end of that came to the conclusion it takes more than practice and dedication. Some innate talent is required as well, talent I unfortunately lacked. No I wasn’t hopeless, I was a mediocre guitarist, but it was clear I could have spent the rest of my life and never achieved the sort of mastery a concert guitarist possesses. It was a friend who commented, after I told this story, if you love it, don’t worry if you’re any good, do it anyway because anything worth doing is worth doing badly. In terms of the guitar I didn’t love it that much. Writing for me is something different.
I’ve been writing for well over ten years and I put in quite a bit more than three hours a day but I cannot claim to be on a par with my favorite authors such as Tom Sharpe and Terry Pratchett. In addition to solid word-craft, those two have mastered a scalpel-like precision in satirizing any number of topics.
Still I keep writing and keep learning. Even when I return to some of my earliest works, edited, edited and reedited, I can still find things which need correcting. It might be considered a never ending struggle, but I look on it as continuous learning. I learn from my mistakes, from both the mistakes and successes of others, and from the world around me.
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Everyone strives to do well. That’s only natural, but perfectionism can be an exacting master. You might want to win a Booker or a Giller with your first novel, but the probability of doing so is rather slim. Literary acclaim is all very nice, but I think you’re better off turning out a few drafts which you file in the ‘Far Future Consideration’ folder than torturing yourself over finding the perfect phrase to summarize your absolutely brilliant character.
As long as you keep at it, you will get better. By ‘better’ I don’t necessarily mean you will be a candidate for those literary awards, or even successful at obtaining a writing contract. I mean you will be satisfied with your own work.
I may not be able to claim brilliance, but I really enjoy editing precisely because I like reading my own work. That, I think is the key to success. If you write for yourself, and you like what you produce, it doesn’t matter if your critics throw rocks at you.
It’s nice to do well, no question about it. It’s nice to receive complements and know your work is appreciated by others, but if it isn’t, if even your friends and family cringe when you mention you’ve produced a new book, it doesn’t matter.
If you truly love what you’re doing, if you find yourself learning and growing with every new work, if you can point with pride to one or more, possibly self-published or even just drafts, then every minute you sit with pen or computer, and create words on a page or computer screen is time well spent.
Read widely, know what you like, tell those stories you have deep inside you. Maybe they won’t vault you to the top of the literary heap, but as long as they matter to you, as long as they provide you with satisfaction and even joy, they’re worth writing. If you love it, do it. The only way you can truly fail is if you give up.
This guest post was contributed by Doug Lewars. Doug is not necessarily over the hill but he’s certainly approaching the summit. He enjoys writing, reading, fishing and sweets of all sorts. He has published fifteen books on Smashwords.com.
“A stated rule-of-thumb is, it takes 10,000 hours of practice before mastery of a skill is achieved.” You may be relieved to know that the person who put that ‘10,000 hours to become good at something’ out there later admitted that he basically pulled the number out of thin air, with nothing to support it. Depending on the skill, and depending on the person trying to master it, far less practice than ten thousand hours is needed. On the other hand, no amount of time spent on a skill will result in mastery if the practice is just doing the same thing over and over with no push to do it better.
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Writing is such a crazy endeavor. On one hand, I find the one thing that best helps me to become a better writer is to, well, spend time writing. But at the same time, talent and luck play such huge parts too. I try to not worry too much and just strive each day to get better.
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I could only “like” this post, or I would have hit the ‘love” button. I feel like if you are not writing for yourself, for the love of doing it, or for some form of external validation then it is way, way, way (too many ways?) to easy to quit. I’m particularly happy to see you mention editing, or rewriting. I like to put humor in my novels and if I laugh over and over at my own jokes, then it’s all worth it. Thanks so much!
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