Writing as a job or hobby for vandwellers

[LeeRevell]

To become truly great at something you need three things:
1. Natural talent.
2. Lots of practice.
3. Passion.

Without any one of these, you won't make it. Simple facts of life.

 

[Patrick46]

To become truly great at something you need three things:
1. Natural talent.
2. Lots of practice.
3. Passion.

Without any one of these, you won't make it. Simple facts of life.

NO on number #1!!

(haven't you read the last bunch of posts???) :huh:

Talent can take you the 'extra' mile toward being a 'Master' of something, but it's definately not necessary to be successful at it either. I've seen it many times in fact.
I personally know several highly successful artists who's work is in no way impresssive at all...but they're damn good businessmen and self promoters.

I'd even say that having a good business sense is much more important than talent for being successful as an artist or in a skillset. Look at some of the 'famous' writers of our time...who's work is less than captivating.

_____________________________________________________________

as for the previous time commitment subject, I found this on FB and thought it fit in this thread quite well:


"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the... work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case." -Chuck Close

 

[akrvbob]

Like I said, there is a LOT of scientific research on this topic, and almost without exception the elite in any field simply put in massive amounts of time.

If you have any interest in excelling at any field I'd strongly encourage you to read this page. It is short and simple and very convincing on the 10,000 hour principle:
http://www.wisdomgroup.com/blog/10000-hours-of-practice/

Here is what they found from one study: The nail in the coffin of "natural talent" was that if natural talent was the root cause of the success of the elite masters, then you would find that some didn't have to practice as much, they were just naturally good. They didn't find those people! The elite universally became elite by massive amounts of practice. Here is a report from one of the studies conducted on violin players in Germany:

Violins in Berlin

In the early 1990s, a team of psychologists in Berlin, Germany studied violin students. Specifically, they studied their practice habits in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. All of the subjects were asked this question: “Over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?”

All of the violinists had begun playing at roughly five years of age with similar practice times. However, at age eight, practice times began to diverge. By age twenty, the elite performers averaged more than 10,000 hours of practice each, while the less able performers had only 4,000 hours of practice.

The elite had more than double the practice hours of the less capable performers.

Natural Talent: Not Important

One fascinating point of the study: No “naturally gifted” performers emerged. If natural talent had played a role, we would expect some of the “naturals” to float to the top of the elite level with fewer practice hours than everyone else. But the data showed otherwise. The psychologists found a direct statistical relationship between hours of practice and achievement. No shortcuts. No naturals.

I really loved this report on the Beatles. Were they just lucky to become the greatest musical influence of the 20th century? Were they just naturally gifted? NO!! They worked their asses off!!

Practice Makes Improvement

In 1960, while they were still an unknown high school rock band, the Beatles went to Hamburg, Germany to play in the local clubs.

The group was underpaid. The acoustics were terrible. The audiences were unappreciative. So what did the Beatles get out of the Hamburg experience? Hours of playing time. Non-stop hours of playing time that forced them to get better.

As the Beatles grew in skill, audiences demanded more performances – more playing time. By 1962 they were playing eight hours per night, seven nights per week. By 1964, the year they burst on the international scene, the Beatles had played over 1,200 concerts together. By way of comparison, most bands today don’t play 1,200 times in their entire career.

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

Then how would you explain child phenoms who excel at master level without even living long enough to put in the level of practice of other masters in their field. Some great pianists were master level by 5. Didnt mozart compose symphanies as a child?
A singer can practice all they want but they have to have a natural singing voice to master it. i know people who practice thousands of hours of singing in choirs that still sound like frogs croaking.

I get that many things in life are achievable by hard work, but to suggest that there is no examples of naturally gifted people doesnt hold up.

if naturally gifted peopple practice a lot at something, does that negate the fact they are naturally gifted? If a naturally gifted person put in an equal amount of hours as a person who isnt naturally gifted in the same time frame, the naturally gifted person will excel.

 

[SternWake]

I think the "natural gift" thing can be used as an excuse to not try, if one feels they do not have the gift.

Some people tell me I should write short stories, but whenever I read something from a real Author, I am humbled and realize how little I understand the process.

English 101 was part of the reason I decided to quit schooling. I always hated the classroom.
Compare and contrast, ......
my ass.

 

[akrvbob]

The exceptions prove the rule. There are many, many elites, but only a few who got there at 5 years old without practice. They are measured by a few per century or millenium. How many others can you name like Motzart?

It's hard to argue with singing voices, you're born with that or you're not. Training can help but it is mainly a gift of birth.

Again, it is the exception that proves the rule. If the people of this forum have an area they want to excell at, they can do it, even if singing is not one of them.

Common sense gets involved also. I'm never going to be the starting center for the Lakers, or the lead singer of any operas!! Not even 10,000 hours is going to make that happen!

If I start playing chess at 44 I may become a master, but probably never a grand-master. He started when he was 4. The world champion started when he was 4, put in his 10,000 hours and had a natural talent for it.

Like Sternwake said, I think that we allow ourselves to be discouraged because we can't be the world champions so we don't want to settle for Grand-Master or Master. I think that's a mistake.

I think the rule remains valid, if you want to be really, really good at something (in this case writing) put in your 10,000 hours and you probably can be even if you don't have a natural gift or will never be the best in the world.

I look for the encouraging things in life instead of the discouraging.
Bob

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

I agree about the concept and we shouldn't use it as an excuse or to limit our goals and desires..just think its only fair to acknowledge that the truelly gifted do exist. Hey, if anything they can inspire us to over take them with effort and gumption

 

[mconlonx]

The 10,000 hrs of practice thing is kind of interesting.

Back in 2009, I got sick of corporate publishing, a contract job I picked up after having done small press publishing for years, and decided to go with passion instead of money by becoming a bicycle mechanic.

It took a couple years before I was at all comfortable checking in a bike, finding the faults which needed to be repaired, and was confident that I could fix them. Every day, there was still something new in the workstand I'd not seen before. But little by little confidence and skill accumulated to the point that I'm now fairly confident about being able to effect nearly any kind of bicycle repair, build, or modification.

Just did the math: 40hrs/week x 52weeks/yr x 5yrs = 10,400 hrs. Heh.

Thing is, I still don't feel anything like a master mechanic. If anything, journeyman.

------------------------------------

If you want to be a writer, start writing. Write every day. Doesn't have to be good, in fact a lot of what you first write won't be, but without practice it won't get good.

From a publishing POV, write in MS Word, or a program which can export a Word doc. If you have art, it needs to be 72dpi for online/ebook quality, 300dpi for print quality.

Self-publishing is fine, but remember that it also requires self-promotion to become successful at it. In fact, even if you are published by a publishing company, don't think you can rest on your laurels, you will still need to relentlessly self-promote.

Outside bestselling authors, most authors do not make a living writing books until they have many, many books in print.

---

Oh, and one of the total guilty pleasure books I love to read is The Destroyer action/adventure/humor series. Co-author Warren Murphy has been at it for decades, and has had published over 200 books. On his website he has posted a "Writer's Class" series of instructive articles: http://warrenmurphy.com/writing-class/

 

[Patrick46]

I've been a professional artist for over 30 years now, so YES, I've paid my dues.
Can I do a good job?? YES.
Am I the best??....no frikken way!!! (but I 'can' produce a commercially acceptable product.)

And now, through the wonderful downslide in the economy...my business has changed dramatically, and I now find myself going into a completely different direction from where I was originally headed. FINE ART. A very tough gig. (but this is also the direction I've always wanted to go, but never did.)

Do I have what it takes?? Only time will tell...but I do have a voice and my own stories to tell, and I believe that this in itself will keep me going.
There are other guys who are masters in this field, but I no longer worry or even care about the competition. They can do their own thing, and I'll do mine. I feel no need to overtake or beat anyone.
The only 'BEST' I'm going to be concerned with, is my own. AM I giving it MY best??!!

I look for the encouraging things in life instead of the discouraging.
Bob

AMEN!!! ^^^

 

[Zak]

I just read a biography of Jack London. one of Americas great writers.

He grew up extremely poor at the turn of the century and was working for 10 cents an hour packing pickles at 10 years old. He was determined to make a living with his brain and read everything he could, including the dictionary.

As a young man he devoted himself to writing 1000 words every day before noon. He did it every day of his life and it worked.

He lived an extremely wild and adventurous life and by the time he was 25 he was the most famous writer in America.

One of us could be next!!
Bob

Truman Capote also made it a habit to read the dictionary, another amazing writer. The key to becoming a good writer, or one key, is also reading as much as you can. As for making money at it, been doing it for thirty years and have yet to earn more than a few dollars but it's what I do ;-)