Writing Prescription: 10,000 hours

[Peg Herring]

Andrew's comment from yesterday echoes a Sleuthfest speaker who mentioned the same thing: that a person has to devote at least 10,000 hours to something to become proficient at it. The woman added her contention that for writing, you also have to read at least 10,000 hours of other people's work. That part, for many of us, does come easy. I'd probably logged 10,000 hours by the time I was twenty, long before I ever thought of publishing a book as something I might want to do.

Like anything else, though, I'd say that your 10,000 hours of writing must be wisely spent. Like a monkey with a typewriter, if you just let junk spew from your fingertips and call it good, you won't improve. If you don't get feedback from agents, editors, and readers, you may never see your flaws, because it's easy to love your own children. And if you aren't always reading and comparing yourself to other writers, hopefully writers who are better than you are at this point, you won't have a standard of comparison to judge "Am I any good at all?" "Am I getting better?" and "Am I developing a unique style?"

It might make you sing the blues, but, again quoting Ringo (and Naomi), "you've got to pay your dues..."