Will Gaining Fifty Pounds Help Me Become a Better Writer?
Yes, I think it will and here’s why…
As I begin writing again with the end goal of body of works to share and connect with others, I simultaneously begin thinking about gaining fifty pounds. Why fifty pounds you ask? Because that’s what I think it’s going to take for me to create something I’m truly proud of to offer my dear readers. In fact, it may need to be more like one hundred pounds. I first heard a preacher share this story about creative work, and it has stuck with me for years. It comes from David Bayles and Ted Orland’s book, Art & Fear:
“[A] ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, it came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”
https://austinkleon.com/2020/12/10/quantity-leads-to-quality-the-origin-of-a-parable/
My favorite mug from a local potter.
Now do you see why I’ve been pondering those fifty pounds of experience so intensely? Earning an “A” isn’t my goal, BUT earning the right to share thoughts and stories with a larger audience because I told them with sincerity and beauty is a breathtaking honor I want to achieve with discipline, hard work, and vulnerability.
Earning the privilege to have a daughter call her mother because she read something so moving she couldn’t settle for enjoying it by herself? Yes, please! Earning the space in someone’s head to remember a truth? Wow! Holy Spirit, would you bless my work this way? Maybe it would be a moment of incite from a story to retell to themselves later in a moment of need or to offer to another- that’s the fifty pounds of quantity that I know I must commit to if I want to earn a person’s attention with quality and maybe *dare I say it* earn their affection. Yes, reader, I love you. Slinging some words on a page will not do if I want beautiful worthwhile pieces to emerge from my potter’s wheel. And I DO!
Disciplining myself to create, and also consume great storytelling must become a daily habit. I’m beginning to set a timer for 30 minutes somewhere in my day to prick my heart and see what flows out and peppers the page. I’ve already had to tell my critical self to “shush” and just let me write and write and write because surely in all of these words, in all of this life lived, in all of these musings, there’s a message to pass on.
While my friend affectionately told me it wasn’t “normal” for people to keep journals over 30 plus years off and on, it’s certainly been my normal and my sanity. I often discover my deepest thoughts, fears and emotions only after I’ve sat down to retell my experience on those inviting little lines shooting across my paper where no one can interrupt or contradict and there’s another crisp, fresh page ready for more ink right behind it. No one is waiting on me while I seemingly space out to decipher what I was truly feeling, seeing, hoping. Or being annoyed at me when I sample five different words before I settle on the one that perfectly represents how I remember a moment.
So, If 1000 words is my equivalent to gaining a pound, I’ll need to write for 500 words for-100 days to accumulate 50,000 words and be fifty pounds richer. Fifty pounds closer to knowing what’s inside of me, meeting you and hope upon hope being a part of your life. The honor is all mine. Thank you for being here.
