practice, practice. Whatever you wish to do, just do it until you are good at
it, then do it until you are better. Is this all there is to self-discipline?
It’s a start, and it’s the foundation you need whether you wish to be a writer,
or a gymnast, or a cheerleader, or even a
mathematician.
When I was about nine years old, I got my first pony. I could
only ride him on the weekends for a long time, so the entire week was filled
with my story telling. Of course at that tender age, many of my stories were
made up, especially the one about running with the wild horses (but it sounded
good to my friends). Trust me, I got good at story
telling.
By the time I was eleven, I had grown into a larger pony, and
wilder stories. And I was becoming as headstrong as those wild horses I loved to
tell about. At one point a wise cowboy at a horse ranch where I loved to spend
my free time, informed me that if I would close my mouth and open my ears I
might have a chance of learning something. Wow that hurt, but only for a little
while.
As I was healing up from getting my pride bruised, I spent a bit
more time with my father at the airport where he flew big airplanes. I was lucky
that way, I pretty much had the run of the place, but I’m not sure it really
helped my head-strong tendencies. But I did have the opportunity to sit and
listen to the pilots telling stories. I would be mesmerized by their adventures
and to this day I could recite any number of their hair raising stories. And I
learned something about story telling; something about how to make it more
exciting while still telling the truth.
When my own story telling started to improve, my father
encouraged me, or rather coerced me, no he made me, sit and write down some of
these stories. I had to write at least an hour every day. Pump out one more
short story and then another. Daddy would read each one, and usually tell me I
needed to make it better. I hated it, but I did it, because when I did get a
story done, I got to go back out and ride my pony.
But he helped me. Not just with my stories. He started sending
them to magazines. I never got lucky enough, or good enough to have one of my
stories published, but I got the practice. More than that, I developed the
self-discipline. Write a little bit every day. Keep your stories and go back and
look at them from time to time. Never throw away a story simply because you
don’t think it’s good. When you and that story are ready, you will re-write it
and make it sing. And if not, you will have at least shared something with
yourself, which is to say that you were able to touch an inner part of yourself
and grow.
Write a little bit every day, even if you never expect another
set of eyes to look at those words, one day the world may be in awe of
them.
Coming soon, what comes after the first writing. What happened in
your life to start you on the path to
writing?