The difficult is simple
Tying your shoes is simple, isn’t it?
Write down how to tie your shoes, make it a perfect, useful description.
It’s not easy?
Someone would have explained how to tie your shoes first and walked you through it many times.
This does not explain why you find it so easy to tie your shoes, and yet so hard to explain.
No other teacher can take the place of experience. We learn best by doing.
Imagine what would happen if you never learned to tie your shoes and had to invent your own knot? There would be many failures.
Experience will teach you the practice; practice often
Teachers give you tools to use to gain experience; practice what they teach.
Dedication will grant you ability; this is your reward for hard practice.
Ask no more of practice.
4 comments:
There's middle ground to be considered here. You can give people some things but others need to be found. You can respect a person but you can't give them self-respect. You can show them how an adult should behave but you can't make them grow up. Being a writer is not as simple as tying a knot. Yes, we all put words down on paper but I doubt any two of us do it quite the same way. We all get from A to B but some of us take the scenic route. It's like comparing a child running in the street to an athlete running in a race, sure the athlete is the more efficient of the two but who's having the most fun?
Dear bt, good post. Practise and learn. Maybe sometimes the ego comes in the way but at the end of the day, all that count is have you written?
I like your example to describe tying you shoes.
@ Jim, there is a balancing point, between what can be taught and found, and most of it, I guess, is partly up to the individual’s various learning mechanisms. I do believe that some teachers work better with some students, but again, that’s on basis of the individual’s various teaching mechanisms.
That anyone can achieve any degree of ability in any thing they want is a point open to debate, but I don’t think too many of us would argue that we’ve ever been able to reach the absolute limits of our capacity to grow within an area of ability.
I hope = )
I think, despite Ray’s comment, I’ll discard the analogy of tying your shoe laces. It can, as you point out, suggest there is some uniform way to learn to write and that we must all follow exactly the same processes and achieve exactly the same result, and this isn’t what I think it’s about at all. I agree whole heartedly with you, in that each of us learns in a different way, produces very different works, and (hopefully) amazing and different stories, each beautiful and unique to the individual, but sharing that grounding common human experience.
Thanks for pointing that one out = )
I think you’ve got to have some passion for what you do, and the professional athlete, if they want to be great, has to love something about their sport. I know a writer who treats his work as a very bloody minded affair, but in his own way he derives great pleasure from it. Partly for all the grumbling he gets to do = ) You can come at your work as work, but I think if you’re doing that you can’t very much want to express yourself with the written word, and that’s OK too. I think to really get things out exactly as you see them you’ve got to enjoy what you’re doing; so you want to take the time to revel in the mental experience and pin it living to the page.
I’m lucky though, when I’m writing I’m like a kid dancing in the rain = )
Jim Authors a great blog on writing called, “The truth about lies,” you can find it in the links bar to the left. Informative, entertaining and fascinating, Jim has contributed a great deal to the shape of “The Anatomy..”
@ Ray, I really do think practice is the key to learning anything, and I agree with you, ego often is a stumbling point. I deal with it every single time I write. If you spend the day writing, what you’ve written counts on the tally board, but that’s not the sole measure, because every word we write helps us grow in some way- I’ve got to believe that, or I wouldn’t write the way I do, and believe in what I write so passionately.
I thought the example of tying your shoes was good too, but as Jim pointed out, it does suggest that writing can be done to a formula, and writers are made by a formula; thanks for the kudos though = ) “Describe how to tie your shoes” was the hardest writing assignment I’ve ever had, it’s a great practice piece though = )
Ray has a great blog called, “The Esoterical Journey,” that talks about living. Call it living philosophy, the art of breathing, what you will, it’s a great blog, all about living = ) you can find a link on the bar to the left = )
"No other teacher can take the place of experience."
Very true. This lends itself to more than writing, but to everything in life!
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