Re-Writing

I realized yesterday that I have made a fatal error in my writing:  I let myself become defined by what I was willing to do rather than what I needed to do. 

In a great many things I am self taught.  This has the advantage of 1) being able to understand how to pick up something and begin a course of study and 2) being able to learn something outside of the "normal" system of instruction.  The disadvantage, of course, is that one tends to feel that one may be missing specific or useful elements. 

And so one tries to compensate.  One writes, for example, but one has never had any formal training in creative writing.  The solution?  Buy a book of exercises and start doing those in hopes that additional improvements will present themselves.  Unfortunately, the problem with this theory is that exercises are never quite as exciting as writing - and so, one comes to define one's writing by what exercise one has completed.  Find a book with enough exercises to deflate the soul, and one stops writing very much at all.

Which is silly.  This is a paradigm that I really need to break away from.  In this era of multiple alternate learning techniques and technologies, I am still plodding away with something that does not seem to be working all that well.

What is the best way to improve writing?  Write.  Any published author would tell you that.  The important thing is to write - regularly, consistently - even if it does not result in the completion of exercises or a book.  By doing, we learn - not necessarily by performing exercises.

And so I have corrected this fatal mistake.  I have gone back to the model that did work for me via Nanowrimo:  a set number of words for a set period of time.  I'm not quite up to the level of November, of course- I'm not seeking to prove I can write a book in a month (I've done that already).  What I am seeking to do is to give myself a vehicle whereby I can insure that I write frequently and consistently.

Exercises do not determine results.  Results determine results - and reward.

Write on, Friends.