Practice makes…

It occurs to me that just about every book I’ve ever read about the craft of writing invariably includes the advice, “Write. Just write. Just do it.” It’s a matter of discipline. Good intentions don’t write stories. Writers write stories.

I feel a little bit of the hypocrite here because I’m struggling with the final revisions of my April project script and more often then not I’m not doing my struggling at the keyboard.

But the advice is still good for another reason beyond getting the work done. Practice works. When learning a physical skill, the repetitive motions you make when you practice actually help the brain make the connections needed to perform those motions faster and more consistently.

I believe that practicing writing makes writing better, too. When you start catching the same mistakes and stop making them. When you decide to experiment with  italics. When you realize that you’ve developed a unique voice for your lead character.

And those are just the quantifiable bits. The cool stuff about writing is that you sometime produce stuff you didn’t even know you had in you. The act of writing spurs creativity, stimulates ideas.

I once wrote a play where one of the characters expressed an idea I’ve had for some time. A deep, thoughtful, insightful idea about the human condition. And then, in the very next line, the other character onstage called the idea crap and started a counter argument.

I didn’t expect that. Here I am with my grand idea, and suddenly I’m writing the opposition paper against it. It was great. Hopefully, it made the play better, too.

So if you want to be a writer, write.  Write for discipline, for getting stuff done. Write for practice, to develop your skills. Write to inspire yourself, to discover the hidden depths of your own ideas. Just write.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go off and start taking my own advice.