It looks easy when someone does it. The painting is perfect.
The music sounds great. The picture is perfect. The article is flawless.
Little do you know how awkward or clumsy it was the first
time the painter tried that technique. The musician struggled with simple scales
to learn finger techniques. The photographer took shots out of focus and cut
off the heads of his friends.
I write and know how hard it is to organize your thoughts.
My first drafts were hard to read and understand. The sentences were not
complete. Thoughts dropped off without explanation. New ideas popped up off
topic. Too much was stuffed into the first article and the pages kept growing.
In short it was awful.
But I kept working on it. Edit, put it down, and much later
read it again and edit some more. Then the article got circulated to other
writers and my editor for feedback. More ideas for changes and edits. Realized
my story was too complex and broke it into several stories that stood on their
own, and the readers could understand the point. More re-reading and editing the
same article over weeks.
The articles that were published looked polished and still
read well today. Got high praise and people thanking me for writing down my
ideas.
Guess what. My writing skills came from giving myself
permission to write ugly. It is how we all learn. “Trial and error and error
and error.” Pick ourselves up and try to do it better next time.
Go out today and see what you can learn. After some hard
work you will be the artist.
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