Those 10,000 miles walked are in the shoes of my characters, all my characters and all my voices, personas, narrators and words I have written in my life. The hours? The time it takes to walk those miles. I’m fairly sure I’ve not yet reached either milestone, but I keep getting nearer all the time.
Back in the 1990s there were a series of studies highlighted in the NYT that determined that the top violinists, Olympians, baseball players and chess players all came out on top as the result of incredible amounts of practice–approximately 10,000 cumulative hours over many years. Then Malcolm Gladwell took this information to the next level in his book, Outliers, which I HIGHLY recommend that everyone read. It’s a fascinating look at what it takes to become an expert in one’s field.
It can also be daunting. There are 8,760 hours in a year. A 1/3 of that is spent sleeping. Another 1/3 is likely to be on the paying job, unless you are lucky/disciplined enough to write fulltime. That leaves 2,920 hours to eat, watch TV, take your kids to soccer games, visit with friends, go to the gym, etc. Really, it doesn’t break down into much.
I’m lucky if I can manage 4-5 hours of writing a week on my book. That’s only 260 hours a year. Eeek! But then I think about how much writing I do beyond my book. Much of my job centers around writing. I write press releases, articles, blog posts, etc. So while I’m not writing on my book, it’s not like words are completely languishing in my brain. I probably spend, on average, 3 hours a day writing. That’s closer to 1092 hours a year. Much better. So, ten years to make that 10,000 hours. When I look at it that way, I have hit 10,000 hours a few times over. But writing marketing-ese is very different than writing a novel. So while I know I can write and I am confident in my abilities, I need to break it down further.
Which means, for me, it becomes about the 10,000 miles my characters walk. Over the course my life I’ve shelved at least 2-3 novels before the one I’m writing now. My characters have walked pretty far, but I bet it’s really only from Boston to Rome, about 4,108 miles (they have magic walk-on-water shoes you know). There is a much longer walk ahead before they’re ready for prime time. I need to spend more time with them, fleshing them out, day after day after day.
I’ve started writing for 30 min in the mornings, which ups my weekly novel writing time to about 5-7 hours depending on how much I can do on the weekends. 364 hours a year. Now I just need to up the ante. Get serious, keep my ass in the chair.
And make sure my characters are wearing some damn good walking shoes.
- 10,000 hours (thediplomaticwife.wordpress.com)
- Is There Such A Thing As *Pure* Genius? (informalflick.wordpress.com)
- 10,000 hours and grit (empwaynek.wordpress.com)
- Book Short: Beyond 10,000 Hours (onlyonceblog.com)
In my social media for authors classes I always talk about how giving content away for free can end up being a win-win. And today 
