It’s my first blog entry! Wish me luck.
Something good’s bound to come of it, especially if it’ll get me in the habit of sitting down to write just 500 words every so often.
Consider Graham Greene, who wrote this exact amount daily, in such a precise manner that he would actually stop in mid-sentence if he knew he’d reached his quota. Often, in Greene’s case this would occur before breakfast, leaving him free to use the remains of the day to do whatever he pleased.
(So: 500 words a day, right? That’s 2,500 words a work-week, 10,000 a month. If you can do this, in just one year (voila!) you will have written 120,000 words, sufficient for a nice-sized novel. And you’ll have had your weekends free.)
OK, granted, there are some fearsome talents out there–writers who can effortlessly combine prose and plot, who “see” the story faster than they can write it.
We were talking about blogging here…
And there are others – like Steven King — who’ve been quoted as saying, “When the words flow, it’s like taking dictation.”
King also says in his memoir, “On Writing,” you can make a good writer better; you just can’t make a bad writer good.
I’d amend that, for the times — and to get this blog entry finally to the point! — and say this instead:
Hit “Publish.”
In the Web 2.0 era, where publishing your work has never been easier nor more immediate, sharing know-how happens instantaneously.
All you have to do is press the button. Just sit down and bang out some thoughts – whether anyone sees it or not, you’re going to benefit in any number of ways.
I have a perfectionist friend named Peter — a real person working in newspapers whose name’s been changed to protect the innocent, and who’s also a gifted fiction writer.
But he hasn’t written anything in years. That’s because Pete suffers from an acute fear (I jokingly refer to it as The Pete Syndrome, but it is very real) of producing less than his best or most clever effort, always.
So to escape this problem, he procrastinates. The clock keeps on ticking.
(Unburdened by a defined style or voice, I can just sort of bang out copy while Pete, a borderline genius, labors.)
Finally, when there’s enormous friction and no time remaining, he coughs up some flawed masterpiece that blows away his peers. Yet he is miserable. Pete’s throwing away his gift, and we’re the ones suffering.
The quickest route to getting better at anything is to just do it, to practice the fundamentals.
No, it doesn’t mean that, to improve one’s writing skills one should read a lot of books on grammar or style
(although that couldn’t hurt), but it does call for writing more — and reading more.
So here’s the message of a rambling first foray into the blogosphere:
Lose your fear. Grab a chair and join the conversation.
Just keep your fingers moving on the keyboard.
And hit “publish.”
And hit “publish.”
