The Word Cloud

Today we have an extra-special guest post from blogger extraordinaire Margo Lerwill – one of the brains behind Wicked & Tricksy, and author of the feisty, Norse-themed urban fantasy short Dis. Take it away Margo…

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All writers, regardless of genre, fiction or non-fiction, planning for self-publication or seeking a traditional contract, will smack up against the same questions sooner or later: Am I ready?

There are a lot of answers out there, a lot of opinions on how to gauge where we are in our development as writers or where our manuscripts are on the readiness scale.  One popular rule of thumb is the 10,000 hour rule that says it takes about that many hours of focused study and practice to begin to produce consistently professional work.

A similar philosophy suggests the sweet spot dwells somewhere on the other side of 1,000,000 words.  The numbers are not the point.  They are simply the method of turning up the volume on the idea that it takes a LOT of study and practice to become a writer of quality.

Now one might expect me to say that we shouldn’t be daunted by such a grand task, such an investment of time.  A journey of a million steps begins with just one?  No, actually, I was going to say that a journey of a million steps should lead immediately to step number one million and one.

Our development as writers shouldn’t stop because we got that nice traditional contract and certainly not just because we might be seeing some good sales figures from our first couple of self-published works.

READ THE REST OF THIS POST AT:

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/a-journey-of-a-million-steps-guest-post-by-margo-lerwill-author-of-dis