Mastering The Craft

“Only years of practice will teach you the mysteries and bold certainty of a real gardener, who treads at random, yet tramples on nothing.” — Karel Capek

Okay — I know that at first glance, this quote appears to be about gardening, and not writing. 🌱

BUT it serves as a wonderful analogy for becoming a master at any craft.

A lot of us get frustrated when we jump into something and we’re not good at it right away. For me, this is never more evident than when I go bowling. 🎳

I go bowling about once every three or four years, when I am invited (coerced) by friends. I rent my shoes, I locate a bowling ball that will neither break my arm or my fingers, and then I get ready for SEVERAL HOURS OF IMPOTENT RAGE.

Bowling SEEMS simple enough — roll the ball down the lane, knock down the pins. Everyone else is doing it with seeming ease.

But when I roll that ball, it zooms like a MAGNET toward the gutter. My scores are always embarrassingly low, and I always end the evening in a bad mood, embarrassed and ashamed that I — a creature of relative intelligence — cannot roll the ball in a way that makes it hit the pins.

I feel like we often develop a similar attitude with writing. We go in feeling pretty good about ourselves — thinking, “Yeah, I’ve got this! Words on a page! What could be simpler?” And hours later, we’ve stress-eaten an entire bag of Hershey’s Kisses and had to stop ourselves multiple times from hurling the laptop/notepad/writing implement out of the window.

But… like with gardening, like with bowling, only years of practice will give us the sure footing and easy style that others have mastered. And ONLY years of practice will do this.

It’s tempting for writers to want to “skip” the hard years of practice and go straight into the mastery — but it doesn’t work like that. You need to find your footing amidst the flowers. You need to hone your… grip? your pitch? whatever they call it in bowling.

You must ask yourself: Is mastery worth it to you? For me, the answer when it comes to bowling is no. I don’t care enough about bowling to put in the time, effort, or energy to master it, even though it means I get really cranky every 3 or 4 years.

But when it comes to writing, the answer is yes. I happily devote my life to mastering this craft, giving myself plenty of grace and forgiveness along the way.

Words & warmth,

Sarah