I've just made 5 Roman blinds for my house. The first two took a lot of swearing and are a bit wonky, the third involved a lot of unpicking and resewing and the fourth has copious quantities of my blood spread between the 4th and 5th bar where I stabbed myself with a pin and didn't notice until it was too late. The fifth is just about perfect and took a quarter of the time of the first blind.
In other words, I got better with practice.
Same with writing. It's a lovely idea that writing just pitches up on the page without any effort on the writer's part but It's Not True. If you do a lot of it (of anything!), you get better and more efficient, and you have confidence that you can succeed.
Persist. Practice. Get better. Succeed.
5 comments:
Yes - practise may not make perfect but it certainly does make better!Hope the blinds look nice.
I've recently made just one Roman blind - it hovered dangerously close to the bin several times and it nearly killed me, Yes, you're right, that's exactly like writing a book! I'm currently on Book 3, I don't think it's very much easier, but I do know now that the only way to reach The End is to stick with it and not throw it in the bin!
I'm seeing the difference already between what I wrote in December, and the ease and fluency with which I write now.
And setting up a spreadsheet showing how many words I need to write each month to complete the first draft by end of year has helped. Especially as it shows me that if I exceed this month's target, next month's target will be lower. Greatly motivating...
How very true!
I'm now drafting book 4 and it flows a great deal more easily than books 1 and 2 and a little easier than book 3. And I have learned so much from courses, conferences and mentors but most of all from other writers.
But the key remains "write more".
Thanks Pat, the blinds do look nice; the first two are a bit wonky but no 5 is a masterpiece!
Chris - but I bet the blind looks lovely now. You're absolutley right - it's not that it gets easier, just you know more about what you're doing.
Phil - the word 'spreadsheet' fills me with doom and makes me anxious, but whatever motivates you, do!
Alison - glad to hear it's going better. And you're right, the key is always to write more.
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