Use Your 10,000 Hours of Writing Wisely

by Chris McGinty of AccordingToWhim.com

There is the concept that you can become an expert on a subject or top of your class in a skill if you put in 10,000 hours of practice with feedback. I think its origin, or at least the origin of its popularity, is Malcolm Gladwell. Ever since I learned of this concept, I’ve been somewhat infatuated with trying to figure out what I’m an expert in. 10,000 hours is 8 hours a day for 1,250 days, which is roughly 3.42 years. This means I’m an expert of 80s popular music. When I become an expert in how to monetize that, I’ll let you know how to hire me for… well, I’ll figure out why you’d hire me while I’m at it.

I’ve written a lot in my life. I’m not sure if I’m an expert writer yet. I’m probably missing a lot of the feedback. I’ve researched and studied, which has given me some feedback on things like grammar, punctuation, and editing. I’ve read my previous writing and compared it to the writing of others that I enjoy. Some people have even read and commented on my work. I think in this way that I’ve improved as a writer over the years. I still don’t think I’m great.

Impatience is the true dream killer. It’s not naysayers, even if they can affect you. It’s not circumstance, even if it plays a role. You can tune out the naysayers, and you can adjust circumstance in many cases. If you want everything to happen tomorrow or it means nothing to you, you’ll give up without really trying.

When you hand your writing to people to critique, you should say something like this:

“I’m currently at x number of hours out of 10,000 hours of practice. I need useful, constructive feedback to help make these hours worthwhile.”

This gives the reader an idea of what feedback you need, and it gives you an idea of where you are in your own journey as a writer. If you want to be a professional writer, you will have to put in the 10,000 hours with feedback eventually. Do as much of it as you can before you worry about making it big. We do a bad job of understanding how much work goes into learning a skill, and often believe that people are overnight successes when in truth they spent far more than 3.42 years getting to where they are.

Chris McGinty is a blogger who may have hit his 10,000 hours of blogging over the years, but he’s currently only at about 5 hours of writing these dumb blurbs. One day I’ll be a real blurb.