Being Masterful At Something

In order to be masterful at something, you must spend a certain amount of time doing it. My brother and I have discussed it more than a couple of times. Apparently there are experts somewhere that say it takes 10,000 hours doing a particular thing to reach that level where you are a master of something.

I've pondered it a lot lately. Just going over the numbers in my head.

I figure I'll spend at least 200 days just writing this year to meet my goal. I calculate that's something like 1600 hours spent just making text. I'm probably being brutal to not consider the writing I've done since the summer following the 3rd grade when I really started to write. I fell in love with the craft within the confines of a program at the University of Idaho, back when people thought I might be gifted in some way.

I filled up an unknowable number of composition books with my (at the time) indecipherable handwriting in middle and high school. As far as I'm concerned, none of it counts because I don't know where any of it is. Those composition books are probably lost somewhere in my parent's house, or more likely, a landfill.

I can build my vocabulary, read the works of others, attend writing workshops, and similar but none of that logs time making text. None of it contributes to that mastery I so desperately crave. It makes me glad I logged my time spent writing since September 2009 and that I've kept everything I ever wrote during that time period.

Technology has really helped give me perspective. Apple's Lion operating system keeps track of every version of the documents I create and the times and dates when I did. I never regret the money I've spent on tools. Well, mostly never.

I've got roughly 29 months doing this now and probably 3700 hours spent making text in that time. That 10,000 hours seems infuriatingly far away as I creep along toward it. It's beyond maddening to think my best work won't see itself fixed in an electronic format for years. Everything I'm doing right now is, hopefully, just somewhat commercially viable practice.

Taking something seriously like this makes you think about every day you spend resting, relaxing or maintaing relationships with people. It's hard because those are hours toward the 10,000 you can't ever get back in this life. However, you can't only be the thing that you do. I've seen a lot of people I know learn that the hard way after their lives became violently lonely or they departed the good things about themselves to be what they do.

I've had my doubts about continuing to blog beyond just being a place to record the monthly numbers to provide statistical perspective. I think everyone needs a little more than that. It's foolish vanity to assume I'm any different.

Washington Post Social Reader = Evil

For those of you who still insist on using the Washington Post Social Reader on Facebook as a means to consume news - I present the following for you to consider. Yes, things like this can end up in the newsfeed of your friends, family and coworkers who currently have you subscribed.

Friends don't let friends use the WPSR!

I submit that linking the article in your status update is dumb and messy because Facebook made it that way, but at least you are in control of what people subscribed to your feed see!

January 2012: Progress Report

I'm putting this up for my own benefit, so feel free to skip reading this unless the minutia of my work is interesting to you.

By the end of January I had...

... knocked out only 9 solid days of work on my novels and 45,000 words of my 1,000,000 word goal.

To give myself some perspective, I was unable to start my writing schedule until January 9th and I battled with my Credit Union and several other people I make payments every month to get my cost of living down. The time was well spent, the household will be much cheaper, about 30% less per month, to maintain financially hereafter. I was also still contributing to Master & Student, which as I write this, should go to certification pretty soon.

This is about 40,000 words less or 8 work days shy of the minimum I needed for this month.

Looking ahead...

February:

There are 21 good workdays in February that will garner me 105,000 words if I stay consistent landing me at the 150,000 word mark. That's 17,000 words shy of where I need to be. There are only two saturdays in February where I could possibly get some extra writing in bringing me to 160,000 if I really push.

March:

I have to travel in March for a few days, costing me two work days depending on whether I can get any work done on the road. I usually can, but I'm not going to count it until that actually happens. That leaves me with 20 good work days that I can use to add 100,000 words to my word count and two saturdays I could possibly squeak out another 10,000 words if I want to push.

If everything goes well, and I push I could be at the 270,000 word mark by the end of March being 20,000 words, or four work days ahead of the curve. That assumes I work 4 precious Saturdays to that end.

Conclusion:

It's going to take two full months to recover from a shaky start. There have already been a couple of days where I was able to hit 5800 words, slightly more than I usually write but it generally cuts into the time I spend doing research and outlining. Trying to push beyond 5k words a day is probably not worth it for that reason, I really need that time to prep and edit. I just need to be patient, slow and steady to the finish line.

Writing Advice - Have a routine

Get up in the morning.

Work out, walk or do something physical. Even if it's just cleaning the bathroom or taking out the trash, so it's not hanging over you for later.

Eat Breakfast.

Shower. You do this after breakfast in case you got any on you.

Get dressed. Put on your shoes, one right after the other.

Go to your desk and sit down, or stand. I have a standing desk.

Put your hands on the keyboard, one after the other, or both at the same time. It doesn't matter.

Move your fingers on the keys and make words appear on the screen or paper. Do this for 4-5 hours.

Do not reread and attempt to edit while you write. You'll be doing that later anyway. Would you call a "redo" in the middle of a beautiful lay up, or as you were tossing the last M&M toward your mouth? No, and writing is no different.

While you're writing, pay no attention to your word count, misspellings, poor grammar choices, and similar. Gird yourself in the full armor of apathy about the process and just tell a story.

At the end of the 4-5 hours, move away from your desk and do something else. Go outside, pet a guinea pig, or organize your socks.

Later, reread what you wrote, probably over dinner while trying to avoid sauce getting on your copy.

Play video games, watch TV, read a book (important) and get to sleep at a decent hour so you can rise the following day and do it all over again.

Write every single day. The rest will hopefully figure itself out. Even while I was in Alaska, I tried to follow this routine as much as I could, in the morning, on the plane, whenever I wasn't taking pictures and feeling like a time-traveling viking.

Stamina

Even if you've done it many times before, writing something that is 80,000 words or longer is a daunting task. Nothing grants us stamina to that end like having a good group of people in proximity that work at something as hard as you do. Returning to my writing schedule has been really hard because of all the post-holiday distractions, but my friends and family have helped by shouldering some of the burden.

I'm really bad at letting people know when they've done something that helped me. There are the people in my life that politely can't understand why I haven't put my work on the market yet. They help me realize that what I do isn't easy, or easy to understand. Then there are all the people who get it, affirming that the time it takes to write a half dozen really good books isn't a task completed in less than two years. Thanks guys.

Oh, that stack of video games and books people gave me for Christmas I've spend the last two weeks ignoring gives me incentive to reach my daily goals relative to my word count and editing. I will eventually use those as rewards for meeting my goals. Thank you!

Meeting someone for coffee puts my time and my relationships into perspective. Actually wanting to see what people are up to on Facebook and Twitter gives me hope that I've got interesting people in my life that fuel my creativity. Otherwise, those sites would be only the sometimes-used self-marketing tool.

My 27 inch display is rocking several projects, two at a time, across multiple desktops. I think my greatest fear is that I'll die before I get a chance to write down everything that is in my head. Part of me doesn't care if anyone even reads it in my lifetime... only that what I thought was given life in the form of words on a page.

Chances are, my fears will be realized. Something will kill me before my fingers take the last keystroke. I'm hoping for old age and an overactive imagination that couldn't be expressed in the span of one lifetime. Such supreme and foolish vanity.

What gives me a sense of myself is that none of what I'm doing will probably amount to much. I'll write my 20 novels, my wife will get around to helping me edit them, I'll self-publish on Amazon and make enough to cover groceries. I'm too much of a misanthrope for college, a regular job, or even dealing drugs to get by.

People will judge me by the car I drive and the perception of what they think my bank account looks like. Should I (foolishly) decide to send my work into a traditional publisher, I will be rejected, and worse, ignored. I will always struggle with depression, and anger, and a hatred of things I cannot understand. I will never be a "success" by the measure contrived by most people.

I am at peace with that.

Writing on this blog has become painful though, as it doesn't seem to serve any real purpose except to give people insight into what I do. I doubt very much the people that understand why I chose this road would find anything of interest here. They already know what the score is.

Some things simply are.

Why would a guy who can't stand to read 99% of what is considered modern fiction want to write it?

Just, because.

Not everything we are called to do is simply in the service of our passions. There's the Gods we believe to exist, the notions instilled within us by our parents, and the culture of our communities to consider. Our own Agency notwithstanding, it appears to be completely random, until you begin to scratch the surface just a little bit more.

From one of the books I'm writing:

"Doing the right thing isn't about garnering a reward. Making right where all else has gone terribly wrong is thankless, difficult, and runs the risk of being futile."

"That’s no real answer. "

"You would still be out there if I hadn't. You would have continued to suffer in the coils of the Tenebrion and from the pain of your wounds, which thanks to the magic woven by your sisters, haven’t killed you yet."

"Numenarch, I would have done you the same harm when we first met, you owed me nothing."

"Lady Diligence, you are the only one keeping score."

Maybe I read too much Giacomo Leopardi and not enough Marcus Aurelius these days, but I had something of an epiphany after I wrote that. I joke about my "Armor of Apathy" and Royce's "Shield of Someone Else's Problem" (+1) with regard to the obstacles that often appear in my life. Most of what I seem to be angry about are the things where I am the most powerless to act. Where I have the most power to change something, and I do nothing, I seem to be emotionless.

I'm doing something awesome, or terribly wrong. Speaking of terribly wrong, my wife has gone crazy and wants me to cook Spam, gotta go.

Resume Interruption

My return to my old writing schedule has been difficult. I'm impatient, I hate everything I write, and fret about a lot of things that matter. Yeah, I think I said that right, and it's okay.

I spent the last year worrying about my workspace, the tools I use, application I employ and a lot of other window dressing relative to what I do. It's kind of nice to have everything in that realm sort of figured out. Having a routine relative to my workspace is also nice, because even when I have a bad day, it's still better than my worst in 2009 or 2010.

When I need to stand, I do. When I need to sit, I can. When it's time to do a set of fifty push ups, I've got just enough space.

The primary casualty is what I call "my interruptions". I've a stack of books I'd like to read, brand new video games still in the cellophane, and miniatures I'd like to sit in the garage and paint. My blog seems a little neglected as well.

If it's a table top RPG or something involving other people, it's enough incentive to pull me from my work. Everything else seems to be gathering dust right now. I'm okay with that, but my good friend Dave got me a killer driving game for the xBox and I love (love) driving games. Folks that would also fall into the "good friend" category got me some books to read.

I need to blog about my trip to Alaska and post some pics of that journey. I've got some good stories to tell about that trip. It's on the list along with everything else I plan on doing when I'm not working toward my writing goals. Hopefully, I'll get to resume my interruptions after reaching some creative plateau or milestone.

And, I'm rambling on my blog at 3 AM because I can't sleep and my fingers want to move across a keyboard and my brain is too tired for anything productive. Closing the lid on my laptop... now.

2012 Schedule

I decided sometime while I was busy being sick before the New Year that I wanted to keep a stricter writing schedule and craft as many new drafts as I could, making that job one. I'll do my editing and outlining in my "free time" and really just focus on getting the words on the paper. I'd like to have at least one line of books I'd planned for put completely to at least first draft by September and ready for edit.

I had made the Windows Phone 7 application I'm working on with a friend job one for a couple months last year. We're pretty close to being finished and able to move on to other things. Not sure what Dave and I are going to do in the aftermath. It's my intent to manage my time better regardless and make sure that the game remains a true side project and that I focus most of my energies on writing.

We'll see how that goes. I've grown to really like creating text and images for that medium and I'd like to design more user interface for the purpose.

I think the biggest mountain to climb this year will be crafting my own personal website. The one I have now sucks and is in desperate need of some serious love. Web design has been one of those skills I've had to reach out to while being pretty distant from my passions. I find the whole process tedious but being a better artist now, it should be fun to pull together the visual elements for my site.

I've pretty much put Storytelling Sciences on the shelf for now, and it gets my occasional attention but I'm kind of at a loss for how to proceed. Part of me thinks I need a partner to work with on that front, someone that shares my passions for games, but I think my pride is probably getting in the way of seeking out that person. All in good time I suppose.

Twenty Percent

I've been going back and forth with my credit union talking about loan modification, refinancing, extensions and so forth. The whole process has been enlightening and made me think about the financial decisions I've made over the last ten years. Buying a home and using it to manage your debt is the biggest financial decision a person generally makes in their lifetime.

The best advice I think I could give someone else is simply this: plan to have at least 20% down when you decide to buy a home. In saving up that 20%, give yourself no longer than 5 years to that end. During that 5 years, live within your means and avoid unnecessary financial liability. This assumes a 30 year mortgage being the product you'll be shopping for eventually.

If you can't save 20% of the value of the home you're looking at over 5 years, you probably couldn't afford it anyway. If the value of the home might come down to where what you can save in five years equals 20% of the value, it might not be a good investment. You can prepare for tomorrow, but good luck predicting it.

If you can afford to save up the 20%, you'll probably be able to afford the home and pay it off over the 30 years of the mortgage. Yeah, that math would indicate that if you could save 20% in five years, you should be able to pay it off in 25 years all things remaining constant. Don't forget that you'll have to pay property taxes, fees associated with the loan, homeowners insurance, and maybe even flood insurance. Homes have lots of hidden costs, hence the 20% over 5 year metric I employed.

Depending on the size of the loan, your closing costs could be $3000 or more.

Banks used to require 20% down for a home loan until their own greed (and our government) encouraged them to lend to people for 5% or less. This is extremely dangerous in my opinion because it robs people of the perspective and personal incentives needed for such a purchase. It's my opinion that the cost of a person's lifestyle can't be factored in until they've actually tried to save up that 20%.

A lot can happen in 5 years while you're saving up that 20%. The value of the type of home you want could go up, but so should your earning power. That 20% figure should be reevaluated every time you get a raise, switch jobs, or incur long term financial liability like student loans or kids.

That's all I got, good luck.

Healing

I'm printing out a manuscript I deemed unworthy of edit or finish back in October 2009. I wasn't doing very well back then, and may have even described that project's demise in my blog at the time. I wasn't well when I wrote that book, nor when I passed judgement upon it. Because I'm doing better, part of me thinks the book might read differently to me now.

Maybe I can even heal the work with a dutiful editing of its content? I guess we'll find out.

I didn't edit any of my own work back then. My wife had time, and I felt better about asking for help. I think this hurt me as a writer, at least with regard to assessing my own work. I need to go back to what I wrote in 2009 and edit everything forward, with my own eyes and by my own hand.

Hopefully, I can garner some perspective and a skill I sorely lack.

Quiet

Noise is marketed, packaged and shipped like so many other things in this world. It's hard to go anywhere without finding it in high quantity and low quality. Movies and television shows are just orchestrated noise with some expensive visuals synchronized to play along behind it.

To that end, I'm making a new commitment to silence. I think it's an important virtue that so many people fail to exercise effectively and consistently. People think it takes courage to speak up, and sometimes it does. It takes wisdom to know when to shut up.

So, do not spread the word. Do not tell anyone about this new movement I'm starting, and certainly don't talk about it.

Just be quiet. Thank you.