Learning from the Masters
Why I continue learning whenever I can.
I have two notebooks I keep (that’s a lie because I’m a writer and I have about a thousand notebooks that I scribble in). One is filled with notes I’ve transcribed from seminars I’ve attended and the other one is notes from books I’ve read.
These notebooks would be two things I’d grab if my house was on fire (along with my laptop, external hard drive, and the dog). They represent my journey to becoming a better writer. I’ll never stop filling them, even when I’m published.
Why? Isn’t being published validation that you are a good writer? Yes and no. I don’t want to be a good writer, I want to be the best writer I can be.
And that means learning and stealing like an artist.
I don’t mean plagiarizing, that’s something different. I mean taking the ideas and concepts that writers before me have found and applying them to my own work.
I try not to judge a book by its cover. I’ve been to plenty of seminars with panels of writers I’ve never heard of because they can still teach me. They are further along than I am.
I judge seminars and craft books on what I glean from them. If my notebook only shows one or two notes, the book doesn’t stay in my collection (I have a whole little bookcase of craft books waiting to be read). But if I’ve filled page after page of notes, obviously that book has earned its place on my shelf.
That shelf is getting overly full. I might need to rearrange a few things to make more space.
The cool thing I’ve found is when the lightbulb goes off in my head and I make connections between books that I didn’t see before. It sharpens my craft and keeps me on my toes.
I don’t think I will ever get to the point where I go, “nope, I know everything I need to about writing, I don’t need to learn anymore.”
This journey has taught me so much about myself and my stories. And my preference for craft books is highly personal. One of the books everyone says is a top three book, I was meh on (I think part of that is I read the original book they were emulating). But that’s the great thing about this is there are a ton of books to choose from.
Is there a non-fiction book, writing or otherwise, that really resonated with you? Let me know because I love adding books to my To Be Read Pile.
Weekly Goals
Write 7K words: Failure. That hurts to write. I know I wrote enough words in my notebook, but I didn’t prioritize my time efficiently enough to type them up.
Go to class: Failure. In my defense, it was my anniversary.
Go to the gym twice: Success.
Read one book: Success. I finished Talking with the Dead by Shiloh Walker.
Sew ten dice bags: Epic success. I finished out an order for 66 bags. That’s where my time went this week.
