At this point I’m fairly sure I will indeed do NaNoWriMo … sort of.\u00a0 I’m going to start writing, that is, but I’m not really going to try to win, I’m not going to strive for 50,000 words in a month.\u00a0 I’m just going to see how much I can get done, but I’m not going to push myself.\u00a0 That way, I can’t lose!<\/p>\n
I spent an hour today finally continuing work on my fantasy novelette, The Cliffs of Oakenrah.\u00a0 I’m on scene 5 of 21, so there’s a ways to go.\u00a0 If I finish, it might become longer than Dreamgiver, making it the longest work of fiction I’ve ever completed.\u00a0 Which, I suppose, is pretty lame compared to most writers, but very superior compared to people who never write anything.<\/p>\n
TEN THOUSAND HOURS<\/strong><\/p>\n I was listening to a writing podcast the other day, and I heard the concept of the “ten thousand hours to expert” come up once again.\u00a0 I think some writers and artists in general are interpreting the concept in a ridiculous way, taking it to mean that an artist’s art<\/em> won’t be any good until the artist has ten thousand hours of experience, and that artists who do have ten thousand of experience are objectively better because of it.\u00a0 But I think the arts are a bit too subjective for that, and I think people forget that there’s a difference between experience and practice, as I mention on the Book Quotes Blog<\/a>.\u00a0 Even I have used the terms synonymously, when they’re not exactly synonymous.\u00a0 Getting more experience doing something you already know how to do well might not help you much, might not make you that much better.<\/p>\n Really, though, it just comes down to the subjectivity of an art like writing.\u00a0 It’s hard to argue that you’re a better chess player if you keep losing games, or a better piano player when you can’t play anything by Chopin.\u00a0 But there are no games or rules in writing.\u00a0 And we don’t have “author’s experience hours” stamped on the back of books to help us decide whether or not it’s something we’ll like.<\/p>\n So please please<\/em> just stop<\/em> applying the ten thousand hour rule to something as subjective as writing fiction.\u00a0 It actually doesn’t mean quite so much in such a context.\u00a0 I’m sure there are plenty of inexperienced writers whose first works I would find brilliant, and plenty twenty-thousand-hours experienced writers who might make me want to jump of cliff to end the torture of knowing their work was deemed by someone else to be publishable.<\/p>\n Nor does the ten thousand hour concept apply to walking, eating, sleeping, daydreaming, etc.<\/p>\n