How often do you write?
Hint: there's no right answer, but there are wise choices
Practice makes perfect.
How many times have you heard that? And yet more and more evidence suggests that this is patently not true (this Guardian article does a nice job summarizing some recent perspectives). Practice makes you… something… though, doesn’t it?
I’ve been thinking about this recently after coming across this blog post by Austin Kleon. He digs into the history of an anecdote about a ceramics professor who split his class and announced that one half would be graded on quality at the end of the semester, and the other half on quantity. At the end of the semester, true to his word, he evaluated some students on the skilled execution of one work of art, and other students on the physical weight of total materials they had crafted.
The surprising result of his challenge was that the Quantity group actually produced measurably better work than the Quality group. Working more over time resulted in a better outcomes than slower, more careful, more precise study. Even though one group read all the books, watched all the videos, and studied all the masters, as it were, it turns out they would have been better off just doing.
Kleon’s surprise was to discover that the truth behind the anecdote was that it was actually a photography class, not ceramics. The students who took more photos produced better photographic works at the end of the semester than the students who tried to produce one excellent work. In other words, this story has repercussions well beyond one type of creative output.
Here’s the thing, though… these students didn’t make perfect art just because they made more of it. They made better art. They showed measurable improvement towards their goal. And science bears this out. Practice does not make perfect, but it quite likely makes us better.
So, how’s your practice?
I see writers all the time who debate MFAs and DIY MFAs, who have read all the books, who listen to all the podcasts, and who are still rewriting chapter one “until it’s perfect.” They want to polish the skills and perfect the steps.
But the reality of it really is that they just need to write.
That’s it! Just write. (Honestly, it feels like a secret, it’s so darned simple!)
Guess what… your writing will start out bad. It might even be terrible. Someday you will look back (if you’re the type of writer who looks back) on what you wrote at the start and be mortified. But the reason you will be embarrassed is that you have been writing, and writing, and writing, and writing… and you have gotten better!
It’s not perfect yet. It never well be (and it never has to be). But because you did it, and more and more and more of it, you got better at it.
You don’t have to write every day, but you do need to write. Probably a lot. Write when you know it’s bad, when you know it’s good, when you feel like it and when you don’t. Write when you don’t believe in yourself and write when you feel like the next great thing! And you will get better.
And better might not mean you write your way into a “big 5” deal. Better is different for everyone. Better is just better for you.
Better might be better overall at writing. It might mean you get better at using strong, interesting words. It might mean you develop a better writing habit or process. It might mean you finally feel good enough to tell people you are a writer. Better might mean the first time you finally finish a full draft. The options for better are endless. One of them is yours!
Now I want to say one last thing about practicing and writing more: you don’t have to do it every day.
There’s a reason people swear by Morning Pages, and as a former Latin teacher (#funfact) I come from a school of repetition-for-learning. But there are also plenty of ways that your better includes other things that tie into writing.
First of all, part of getting better at writing is reading. I think that writing more and reading more go hand-in-hand. There’s that famous quote from Stephen King: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”
If you don’t want to trust my word on it, trust his.
Reading more means you see how writing works in real-time. All the guidebooks and craft books in the world can’t, ultimately, show you how good, book-length writing works. You have to immerse yourself in someone else’s words so you can add to your own vocabulary. Read countless scenes to grasp how you might build your own. Follow the journeys of as many protagonists as you can so you can learn where yours walks in your world.
Reading more will make you a better writer.
Writing more will make you a better writer.
So what are you waiting for?
Reading
My husband always gets me a stack of books for Christmas. It’s become my favorite holiday tradition. This year the choices were all nonfiction and memoir because… well…
I started with Rude Talk in Athens: Ancient Rivals, the Birth of Comedy, and a Writer’s Journey through Greece by Mark Haskell Smith. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been on a Greek lit kick ever since I devoured the incredible Cloud Cuckoo Land earlier this year. Perhaps it’s because I was just in Greece in October and I’m headed back in 2 weeks. But I found this book to be a hilarious exploration of the ancient world interpreted by a skillful writer whose easy comedy and sincere love of Athens positively leap off the page. An utter joy to read if you’ve ever been to Athens!Next on my list is Lost in the Moment and Found, the latest in the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire. This series speaks to me in a way I can’t quite express - it’s like a more authentic understanding of the Peter Pan stories, only McGuire passionately gives freedom to the Peter Pans over and over again, instead of the children who grow up. I love every page.
Finally, as I was writing this newsletter, I got an email from bookshop.org about Rick Rubin’s The Creative ACT: A Way of Being. #ordered Consider me already obsessed. Essays and insights on creative acts and creative lives, not as something unattainable, but as something we all have the potential to be… how wonderful and important. This may be the 2023 inspirational guide that you’ve been looking for. I’ll report back.
Watching
I read Dopesick about a year ago (when the mini-series was all the rage, I of course wanted to read the book first). This week, I finally started the show. WOW. Within five minutes it was clear why Michael Keaton won all the awards. I’m also (as a writer) fascinated by how well and how carefully they convert nonfiction into fiction. It’s not a typical translation and I find it really interesting in terms of holding onto the facts as part of a creative act. I’m just really impressed.
I also started the new season of Vikings Vahalla on Netflix this week. While I could never get into the first series, when Valhalla season one opened with an obscure event in the life of one of my favorite obscure historical figures, I was hooked (how did anyone pitch a show with a guy named Aethelred the Unready… and get it picked up?!) Setting aside its many historical anachronisms, count me in for any tv series about the Battle of Hastings!
Happening
Registration is now open for the class I’m teaching in March at the Newberry. It will be online, so anyone who wants to sign up for "Deconstructing The Devil in the White City,” can join me and a group of fellow Larson-lovers to understand how to write fabulous Nonfiction. In this 1-day seminar on March 29, we’ll break down The Devil in the White City as a masterclass in Nonfiction writing to better understand how and why it works here (and it’s not because he has a serial killer!). There are only a few seats left. Message me if you have any questions and I hope to see you there.
As promised in the last newsletter, starting next month, I’m going to host a small book club here on Substack. We’ll dive into a memoir or nonfiction book (and maybe a little fiction) to better understand how that writer worked the genre. We’ll look at what speaks to us as Readers, at how s/he uses characters and and narrative arc to compel us to read on, how their POV works, or their research is woven into the narrative. In short, my hope is that we can be writers actively reading great books. I mean, is there anything better?
For the month of February, we’ll be reading The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir, by Ingrid Rojas Contreras.
According to the New York Times Book Review, in this memoir about family magic (yes, you read that right!), "Rojas Contreras reacquaints herself with her family's past, weaving their stories with personal narrative, unraveling legacies of violence, machismo and colonialism... In the process, she has written a spellbinding and genre-defying ancestral history."
I can’t wait to immerse myself in this incredible family story.
Each week right here on Substack, I’ll post some thoughts and guided questions in the Chat. Everyone is welcome to the conversation. Bring your friends! There’s no deadline, no requirements, just the expectation that we all have something to learn about the process and power of writing memoir from Rojas Contreras’ story and that it’s always better to share than to read alone.
To set some targets, I’m going to aim to read about 75pp a week, so let’s try this schedule. We’ll chat about:
chapters 1-4 on Feb. 8
chapters 5-12 on Feb. 15
chapters 13-18 on Feb. 22
the whole thing on March 1 (February’s a short month).
Jump in when you can, set your own goals, but know that we’re here as a community learning and reading together.
I’m excited. I hope you are, too.
Message me with any questions. See you in February.