Perseverance AKA Bum Glue
When I first started writing, I read a book that said your millionth word will be the one that gets published. Or your third novel. Or if you write for ten years. I am here to say that was the truth at least for me. Back then, I thought to myself, wow! That's going to take some serious bum glue!
Bum Glue: (v) The ability to be able to sit for long periods of time and produce something that doesn’t seem to be of immediate value, without seeing immediate results.
I thought to myself, well, ten years are going to pass whether I wrote or not, why not write? It was a cheap hobby and healthy at least mentally, not so much physically as I feel like a sloth with a laptop and a bazillion stories competing for screen time.
But what makes people successful? Is it their brilliance? Or is it that they just kept at it long enough to be good?
Is talent more important than skill?
In ten years could I learn the skills to write well?
If I put in the time and learned my craft would I accomplished what I set out to do?
Now that I have a publication date, I can say it took nine years of serious daily writing for me to get published. I did a calculation of how many words I wrote, roughly. Writing about 2,000/words a day, for five to six days a week. Sometimes it was more, sometimes it was less. I did that for nine years. 2,000 words a day x 5 days a week x 52 (number of weeks) x 9 (number of years)= 4,680,000 words.
Does bum glue help you achieve any goal? I think if you want to do something, all you need is dedication and perseverance.
Okay, maybe not everything. I don’t know if I have ten years to devote to Olympic ice dancing at my age, but maybe if I was six...
So what am I shooting for? #1 spot of the NYT Bestsellers list? Better get a move on, I'd better spread some bum glue and get to work.
Bum Glue: (v) The ability to be able to sit for long periods of time and produce something that doesn’t seem to be of immediate value, without seeing immediate results.
I thought to myself, well, ten years are going to pass whether I wrote or not, why not write? It was a cheap hobby and healthy at least mentally, not so much physically as I feel like a sloth with a laptop and a bazillion stories competing for screen time.
But what makes people successful? Is it their brilliance? Or is it that they just kept at it long enough to be good?
Is talent more important than skill?
In ten years could I learn the skills to write well?
If I put in the time and learned my craft would I accomplished what I set out to do?
Now that I have a publication date, I can say it took nine years of serious daily writing for me to get published. I did a calculation of how many words I wrote, roughly. Writing about 2,000/words a day, for five to six days a week. Sometimes it was more, sometimes it was less. I did that for nine years. 2,000 words a day x 5 days a week x 52 (number of weeks) x 9 (number of years)= 4,680,000 words.
Does bum glue help you achieve any goal? I think if you want to do something, all you need is dedication and perseverance.
Okay, maybe not everything. I don’t know if I have ten years to devote to Olympic ice dancing at my age, but maybe if I was six...
So what am I shooting for? #1 spot of the NYT Bestsellers list? Better get a move on, I'd better spread some bum glue and get to work.
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