To Misquote Ringo..."It Don't (Be)come Easy"

[Peg Herring]

Practice makes perfect, they say. So the more a person writes, the better he/she should become, and that's true in a sense. But the weird thing is that the more I look at writing and practice writing, the more I see that has to be done to make my work what I consider good writing. It isn't just a matter of coherent paragraphs and chapters that end with a hook. It's a complex stew of skills that grow with every work, or at least they should.

I remember reading early on that writing well is a process, and like a lot of things we learn, this is a lesson that is internalized only by experience. You think you're a pretty good writer, and then a year later you think, "I'm better now than I was then." Why couldn't you see it then? It's a process. What does that mean for next year? Hopefully that you'll see improvement, if you're paying attention and not using a recipe. LIke a great cook, a great writer may begin with Betty Crocker, but as time goes on will become unique through practice, careful consideration, and hard work. It doesn't become easy, but it can become better.

[Andrew Kent]

Malcolm Gladwell in "Outliers" discusses the 10,000-hour rule. You need to slog away at an avocation for about 10K hours before you're proficient. A lot of early success comes to people who had access to great sandboxes, and used them tirelessly. That's about 5 years at 40 hours/week.

[Dana King]

The better you become, the more you notice what doesn't pass muster, things you would never have thought of a year ago. Like they say, "The more you know, the more you realize you don't know."