This is writing related, so stick with me here. Ok, leave if you're not interested in writing. I had an epiphany.
When Zane first joined the soccer league, the only thing I knew was that you couldn't touch the ball with your hands and there was a goalie. That's it.
Zane has played soccer four years now and I've watched the teams grow from the four and five year old "beehive" soccer to the present seven and eight year old games that are starting to resemble a real game. Beehive means that all of the kids from both teams are on the ball running from one side of the field to the other, the ball is the beehive and all the bees are close. As they've grown, I've also learned a bit about soccer, but last night I was baby-ing Phil after his surgery and we were flipping through channels and found a professional soccer game. We watched in amazement at the accuracy of the passes and the strength these athletes displayed.
I'd never watched a professional game.
So my epiphany is more like a Homer Simpson D'oh moment.
When it comes to writing--who should I be watching? The Beehive youngsters or the seasoned professionals? You know where I'm headed, don't you?
I think I've wasted far too much time watching wrong league. This epiphany also plays into my years with direct sales. It was often said, if you want to be a manager, then act like one and surround yourself with other managers. To apply that to a writing career is a bit different though, at least through my eyes. There are a lot of people out there who call themselves writers because of some romantic notion floating around in their brains--I'm not talking about surrounding myself by those people. I'm talking about surrounding myself with the seasoned veterans.
The good thing about being a writer is if the professional I admire is gone, I can still capture his essence by studying his work.
There you have it. I've made a decision to go with it. I feel like I need to put my blinders on, focus. I'm not going to waste my time anymore trying to learn from the Beehive League, I'm going for the Big Dog training. They, of course, make it look easy and it will be much harder in the long run, but won't the payoff be that much sweeter?
3 comments:
So you're surrounding yourself with seasoned vets, eh? Well, it was nice knowin' ya. I'll miss ya.
And looks like you've been on an Anne Rice kick.
No, not really an Anne Rice kick, those are just random books in my library and they change randomly. :)
I'm still on Lisey's Story and To Kill A Mockingbird.
Oh, and you can't get rid of me that easy. I'm a Misfit Lifer. I just meant I'm going to be more aware of the teachings I follow.
Yeah, I figured that out last year. I was so busy trying to keep up on the market that I wasn't reading enough stuff to to really grow. Now that I've been doing that for about a year, I'm really seeing it change what I want to write.
I think one of the hardest things, at least for me, is figuring out who I am as a writer.
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