Monday, September 13, 2010

9,999 hours to go...

"In the face of frustration, your best tool is a few deep breaths, and remembering that you can do anything once you've practiced two hundred times. Seriously."
--from page 1 of The Daring Book For Girls
When I read it a week ago, this quote was a healthy reminder of a concept that I've encountered elsewhere before: that progress is the product of repitition. And though practice--in my experience--doesn't usually make perfect, practice almost always does make passably decent.

I listen regularly to the podcast published by WNYC's RadioLab. It's pretty entertaining and consistently fascinating stuff. On the 07/26/10 short episode, "Secrets of Success," one of the show's hosts interviews Malcolm Gladwell, who discusses the idea that in order to be good at something, you must practice at least 10,000 hours. According to Gladwell, geniuses, from Bill Gates to Mozart to Wayne Gretzky, are not so much people who have been endowed by fortune with superlative skills or talents, as they are people who possess "an extraordinary love for a particular thing." Because of their love for whatever it is they do, they are so consumed by it that they only can devote themselves and their time fully to it.

Today was the first day (of, I'm sure, many to come) that I considered not updating this blog. I just didn't have anything interesting to write, and I couldn't think of any good stories from my past to transcribe, either. I wanted to just let it slide, shrug it off as one day lost, and get back to finishing season one of Heroes.

But I couldn't.

Remaining faithful to this 365-day blogging program is not just about integrity or proving a point. I'm really trying to improve myself here. And I don't honestly think that, if I spend 10,000 hours writing, I'll be able to write the Great American Novel; but I do believe that I'll be a better writer.

No comments:

Post a Comment