If I had a dime for every person who said to me, “I want to write a book,” I’d have ten dollars!
I smile and encourage those with big dreams! I love big dreams. But the moment I start to speak the realities of writing a novel, smiles fade, light dims from behind the eyes, and I can see I’ve killed hopes.
Why do we love dreams without substance? Why is it we think dreams just come to us? Most dreams are the result of very hard work.
American Idol winners aside, most singers, artist, musicians, writers spend hours and hours on their craft.
On a recent drive to visit family in Tennessee, I listened to a book, Outliers. The author, Malcom Gladwell, looked at societies and individuals to see how and why they achieved success. While I think the study in limited in scope, I also saw Gladwell touched on some truth.
Hard work is one thing, but so is being at the right place at the right time. Bill Gates, for example, was a math geek. Brilliant. But he also was the only 13 year old in the world who had online access to a computer mainframe in 1968. Most adult computer programers didn’t have such access.
By the time Gates was 17, Gladwell calculates he spent 10,000 hours programming.
The Beatles. Lucky? Maybe. They spent 1960 – 1962 playing bars in Hamburg, Germany. They played over 150 days a year, eight hours a night. It wasn’t enough to have a set list of fifty of their best songs, they had to have 8 hours of music. They learned to play well, to play together, to play everything.
The result was two of the most prolific songwriters of our time. Gladwell brings up the 10,000 hour mark. The Beatles played well over 10,000 hours by the time they invaded America.
Same rule with top athletes.
Now, it’s really hard to write 10,000 hours. I can’t say I’ve written 10,000 hours. But I can say I’ve written a lot.
What it takes to become a successful author is time, dedication, focus. Do you want to write a book? Stop talking and dreaming and start writing.
Make a schedule for yourself and surround yourself with people who will help you enforce your goal. Maybe we can start a new kind of WW group. Not Weight Watchers but Writer Watchers.
Surround yourself with opportunity, with goals and with hours and hours of butt-in-chair.
Speaking of…
Happy writing.