How Close Are You to Your 10,000 Hours? Viewing Writing as Practice

On our fridge we have a New Yorker cartoon.  A dog is sitting on a mountain ledge at the feet of his guru.  The caption reads:  "The bone is not the reward--digging for the bone is the reward."  I keep it there to keep me humble.  About my writing, and my 10,000 hours.

A past MISA student sent me a great article about this (thanks, Tom!).  As a beginner so many times during my life--in writing, in playing a musical instrument, in kayaking, in painting--I know well the impatience we can have to have it all now.  To be good enough immediately, to show unexpected genius, to land that incredible deal, because we have such innate skills.  We want to not practice writing, we want to just be a great writer.  Right?

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Moving from Writer to Reader View: Revision Steps to Make Your Book Stand Out

Books enter our lives in distinct stages.  First comes the wild idea.  It grows gradually in the inner room of your creative self, until you can't ignore it.  You have to get it down.  This burst of energy propels you through an important starting gate--past ideas ruminating inside to ideas on the page.  Maybe they're externalized for the first time, and they generate other ideas.  You write for months, years, whatever it takes to shape your vision.  This initial timeline is very individual:  if it's your first book, you may need a lot of time to dream.  Or, if it's been generating inside for years, it may come forth in a mad rush.  

It's exciting, this idea to vision stage.  And eventually, you have a draft.  It's way rough (I love writer Anne Lamott's name for it:  shitty first draft), but without it, you ain't got nothing, as they say.  So you start here. 

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