Filling Pages, Logging Miles
My older brother is the writer of the family. Every time we talk I try to skim off as many writing tips as possible. The best tips get jotted down, read and re-read whenever I need to tighten-up something I’ve written. I keep another notebook for painting tips from my mother, and another notebook for workout tips from my coaches. These notebooks have piled up over the years, filling my bookshelves and transforming my house to look oddly similar to the Library of Congress.
I was thumbing through my book of writing tips the other day when I found the most useful tip my brother ever gave me: Write everyday. When you don’t know what to write about, sit down and write. When you are in a hurry, write fast. When you’re tired, write a few lines. Write. Write. Write. Build up your volume. Get your ideas down. Fill pages with what you’ve written even if your pages have only one or two sentences worth using in an actual story.
My painting notebook held similar advice stolen from the late great, Andy Warhol who I will now misquote: “Make art. And while the world is deciding whether it’s good or not, make more art.”
“Put in the grunt work now and develop your personal style later,” my Mother would tell me. She illustrated this point by handing me a book of Pablo Picasso’s early sketches. Each sketch was a meticulously detailed piece of realistic art. But this was Picasso? You know, Picasso; 2D, shapes, mis-shapes, scramble jamble abstraction, Picasso.
So? Picasso learned to draw before he tried abstraction. He logged the hours on the basics before trying anything too advanced. So did Jackson Pollock. So did Andy Warhol. So did Ernest Hemingway. So did Annie Leibovitz.
Log your miles, notch your reps and finish your drills now so you can look forward to creating your own masterpiece this spring.
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