[a 22-second skim]
Germans have a word for mixed-raced people: “Mischlings”. It’s considered a pejorative term here in Berlin (the equivalent of “mongrel,” perhaps) but I like it. I like how it sounds and I like the fact that it isn’t as pseudo-technically specific as words like “Mulatto” or “Quadroon,” because those words purport to denote the precise proportion of mixing involved in the production of a given Mischling. People always asked me, when I was a kid, what I was and I often answered “mixed,” when it was safe to do so, having learned to read people, fairly young, in the crucible of the low-rent neighborhood that toughened my proto-writerly skin. I’m being discursive, here, because I enjoy writing. All I really wanted to do, in this introductory paragraph, was cite Mischling Malcolm Gladwell’s dictum regarding practise: “ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.” It’s not important that this figure, of “ten thousand hours,” has been “debunked,” since it was published, or that debunking the figure is nearly as silly as asserting it. The “ten thousand” part should be replaced with “a lot”.
“A lot of hours of practise can be the magic number of greatness (if you have any latent potential at all).”
Now the dictum works.
How does one log a lot of hours practising writing? Effectively, I mean. How?
I’ve read of examples of Future Greats copying out the works of Classical Greats, in longhand, with quill pens, perhaps, in order to absorb some of that Classical Greatness. I laugh at the bone-headedness of the literal-minded superstition of such a practise. It’s not as retrograde, as trying to learn French, by sleeping with the textbook under one’s pillow, would be, but it will do. If you’re attempting to master penmanship, by all means copy out The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, in longhand, with a sharpie, in a few dozen of your moleskins.
Warning: don’t be a sucker by hoping to get your “a lot of hours” by signing up for a “Creative Writing” class, either. The law of averages indicates that the likelihood, of any given teacher of such a class, or any of its students, being gifted, or merely not hopelessly untalented, is awesome in its evanescing smallness. I may be an idiot but my idiocy is painlessly quick and free of charge. Pay to study Kung Fu, for two years, with a graceless klutz, with the striking power of a beaver’s submerged fart, if it pleases you to, but remember that it’s much harder to unlearn nonsense than it is to avoid it. There are writers, to this day, who are needlessly avoiding “telling,” in order, exclusively, to “show,” because Mr. Kaczmarek, in 10th grade, told them to.
In the old days we simply, and antisocially, wrote for hours every day, in journals and in the margins of text books and comic books, on lined yellow legal pads, on graph paper, on hotel stationary which our fancy Aunt gave us, to impress our mother, and so forth. We discovered the capacious literary form of the Pretentious Love Letter (never bettered than in the wild declarations of CLR James to future ex-wife Constance Webb, by the way) in our teens; wrote drolly world-weary accounts, to High School friends, from college; over-answered on essay exams and questionnaires; taped up elaborate laundry room commandments and also crafted ten-page letters, of meticulous complaint, to imminent (Connie-Webb-like) Exes. We word-mad weirdoes of the late-middle of the 20th century wrote whenever we could. We did not know why any more than the Carpenter Ant does.
I’m not sure how old I was when I realized that I was a Write-a-Holic, but the penny-drop came, with the sense of a higher calling, for far too long postponed, when it hit. A gift from indifferent gods: the addiction that can improve any sufferer too weak to kick it! By writing a lot, in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, we progressed noticeably…
…but with baffling slowness. It was a twee trudge. We were working out in a near-vacuum. Lifting ghost-weights, I guess.
Then the End of Civilization (the Internet) intervened and gave us these weird new toys called comment threads upon which to A) inflict our rhetorical styles on large audiences while B) risking the savage and humiliating critiques of crowd-sourced pedants, some of whom were terribly sharp.
It was amazing. Like learning self-defense by being attacked by dozens, or hundreds, of enraged opinions, with big sticks and brass knuckles, every week. And living to fight again. And again.
Really, do this: Learn to argue well, in comment threads, and Forums, on the Internet. Learn to do so crisply and unemotionally and with style.
Do it a lot. Because… writing is writing. Also:
What is a short story? A short story is a spirited argument presented for the edification of generally-disinterested parties who don’t, initially, necessarily, believe that you can write.
Though ten thousand hours of practise may not prove to be enough.
Who am I to tell you this? I am a Mischling you can trust.
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THE IMPERIALIST 