Practice Makes…Perfect?

Have you ever really thought about the age-old saying that, “practice makes perfect”?

Well this morning while drying my ever growing hair, I thought about writing again. Now, when I say again, I mean for probably the thousandth time since waking at 6:20 AM. Not a day passes that I don’t think of writing in some fashion.

Do I write? Well…currently, no. I haven’t really written anything (aside from this blog post), in quite a bit of time. Do I contribute that to a bout of writer’s block? No, not really. It’s not that I don’t know what to write – it’s more that I keep finding excuses not to.

I used to be able to pound out 4-5,000 words a day on my laptop without so much as batting an eyelash. Every night I would lose myself to the music coming through my headphones as I typed word after word and hit save. I got so accustomed to the activity that my brain was hard-wired to automatically jump into writing mode around the same time every night. It was a conditioning of sorts…practicing.

My fingers have become lazy from lack of practice. The keys mock me, yet I don’t fight against the taunts. Instead I do other things that normally get shoved aside during a writing frenzy. I clean, cook new things, go outside, read, watch Netflix, and generally just do everything but write. Finding something else to occupy my time isn’t hard. (Have you ever heard of Pinterest?!) There’s also this wisp of a girl running around my house who calls me Mom and that makes me feel pretty awesome. She generally garners my attention first and foremost and I fill in the gaps with whatever is left.

I really should sit back down and push myself more and maybe I will soon, but not today. I have so many ideas in my head and some are half-written paragraphs or emails sent to certain people I trust to read such things. There’s also a novel that’s 98.5% complete. Seriously, I think it needs about 5,000 words before calling it the end. It’s been sitting at 98.5% for about six months now. Do I know the ending? Yes. I could probably sit here and tell you every last detail in person, but can I write it down? Not a chance.

I guess the point I’m trying not so successfully to make is that I need to practice more. It definitely won’t make me perfect because to me perfection doesn’t exist, but it would help me to improve. There’s always room for improvement.

Essentially, practice doesn’t make perfection. Nothing will ever make anyone achieve that status. But what practice will do is give you better grasp on things, a better sense of self, and just maybe (if you’re like me), one day it will give you the end to your novel.

Because you can’t have an ending without a beginning. So what are you waiting for?

Write it.