This summer my kids have been trying to learn cool yoyo tricks. They watch YouTube videos, then try to do the tricks on their own—some more successful than others. Some are great at taking their time learning. They’ll laugh at their mistakes and keep trying, at least until they get bored with the practice.
But some have a really hard time with the chasm between how good they want to be and how good they are at this moment in time. They want to be good right now.
As I watched one put down the yoyo and move on other things, one keep practicing until he got “good enough for today,” and another get frustrated to tears because he couldn’t immediately execute a complicated trick, my thoughts turned to writing. And how sometimes it can be excruciating to take our time getting incrementally better.
When many of us (including myself) first get started writing, we want to be the best writers right now—not in five or ten or thirty years. Do we really have to wait that long for this to get easy? (I don’t know…I’m not fully convinced it ever gets easy.)
And related to being the best writers, we want to accomplish ALL THE THINGS right this minute!
I’ve told my kids for a very long time that anything worth doing takes time. (I have a lot of wisdom nuggets that probably go in one ear and out the other—which is why I repeat them so often. They’ll be mantras in their heads by the time they leave this house. I can do hard things. I am magnificent. I can take my time becoming…anything!)
It’s not always fun to take our time.
We’ve been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack nonstop this summer (a few kids are obsessed with the musical). There’s a song with the line, “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” That gets me every time I hear it.
I’ve always written like I was running out of time. Everything feels urgent—every project, every piece, every idea. I have to do it. I have to do it now. And it needs to be great—now!
But we don’t learn how to be excellent at something quickly. Even if we have talent and skill, that talent and skill needs to be honed. We don’t start out excellent. We become excellent with practice and years.
Mary H.K. Choi, who has written some of my favorite young adult novels, says, “It’s not about the accomplishment, it’s about the very slow and grueling work of just getting better at something over time. It always takes time.”
It always takes time. And grueling work.
Getting better doesn’t just accidentally happen. We have to make it happen. We have to pursue it.
So how do we do that as writers? Here are my suggestions.
1. Improve intentionally
In order to improve intentionally, we have to be aware of our writing weaknesses. I like to make a list and then make a plan. Seek out educational resources, like Writer’s Digest (I subscribe to the print magazine, which is a fantastic resource, and their web site includes writing courses and craft books) or DIY MFA (https://diymfa.com/), which has all kinds of helpful resources on the craft and business of writing.
Make a curriculum of improvement for yourself, if you’re so inclined. I like to focus on one element at a time: character or voice or plot or story structure or setting or pacing. You can also go broader and focus on poetry or short story or essay as a “course of study.”
If that doesn’t appeal to you, because you’re not as ridiculously excited about learning as I am, you can still intentionally improve by constantly writing—and finishing what you start. And reading like your craft depends on it—because it does.
2. Evaluate
In order to improve, we must have some form of evaluation, even if it’s as simple as reading through your previously written compositions to note how you’ve improved and then reading through new stuff and making note of areas where you still need to improve. Look at your compositions through objective eyes. Many of my stories and compositions have their own unique areas of weakness, which means I have to approach each of them differently.
Here’s a little secret: that little niggling fear about what’s wrong with your piece or manuscript (the pacing’s off, the voice isn’t quite right, it has too many characters)—your gut is usually right, and an agent or editor will likely recognize it. Better to just go ahead and improve those pieces now. Sometimes that will require learning new things and gaining new skills. But we’re up for the challenge, aren’t we?
Give yourself a report card as you make your evaluations. Check on your progress every quarter or so.
3. Remember to be patient
Instead of thinking, Why can’t I be good at this already? focus on the ways you’ve improved incrementally. Improvement can be, as we’ve already established, excruciatingly slow. As a runner, I know this from my training. Making incremental gains, almost too tiny to notice, is still improvement. It all adds up.
In anything that takes time, there comes a point when we want to give up. That usually happens around mile eight of my runs (but years ago it would happen at mile four—so improvement!). Or the middle of a story. Or, lately, the end of the middle of a story. But keep at it. The end result is worth the work we put in now.
And it’s worth noting that we’re never really “there.” We never reach perfection. We always have potential for improvement, no matter how long we’ve been writing.
Time gives us practice, which leads to improvement.
Achievement also takes time. Often, the more we improve, the more we achieve. So there’s a silver lining for you.
When we’ve put in decades (I know how long that sounds, but the years seem to fly!) to our writing craft it can be incredibly fulfilling to look back and see how far we’ve come.
So how far have you come? Miles or inches, it’s all necessary improvement.
May you have a month of large and tiny improvements.
