Musicians practice. Athletes practice. Airplane pilots practice. Virtually all professions, which offer internships and apprenticeship, are offering practice. The question for today is can, and do, writers practice?
I asked some of my writer friends for their answer to this question, and all of them said, “Reading.” I have no doubt that reading (a lot) is required of people who wish to write. A musician must listen to music (a lot) as part of his or her musical understanding. Still, no one confuses listening to music with practicing music.
Also, without doubt, if you have been writing for a long time, you are, so to speak, a practicing professional, and that practice adds immeasurably to your writing skill.
But I am going to suggest that rewriting is writer’s practice. I thought about this as I labored today over a paragraph in a new project. Changing the structure, the words, the rhythm, the logic, the metaphors, etc., etc., of that one paragraph—trying to get it right—is practicing my profession—writing. I believe it was the British writer, George Bernard Shaw who said, “Hard writing makes easy reading.”
No one, no one, no one writes anything really good unless they rewrite, which is to say practice. Like every other kind of working artist, practice makes … art.
4 thoughts on “Practice makes …”
Thank you, Avi. You always provide outstanding advice! In the middle of a rewrite now. All the Best!
Gillian
Wow… It is unbelievable what you have on your blog! 🙂 I’ve never thought of this until now!!!
‑Megan
I completely agree that readin, writing, and rewriting are all ways to practice writing. When reading, you learn more elaborate words and ways of writing. When writing, well, let’s just say that your first book probably won’t be as good as your fourty third. With rewriting, however, you are allowed to reflect back and say, ‘What was I thinking? That makes no sense.’ It shows how much your writing skill changes in a period of time.
‑Sam
I think practice for writing is just free writing. Sometimes I like to just free about anything i want. It sort of gives you practice for when it’s the real thing. You can write whatever you want and you don’t need a specific prompt that everyone writes about. It feels amazing to just let your river of creativity, flow. Sometimes it helps you become a better writer because you get to practice word choice and grammar and those kinds of things.
‑Dasha