I’m on a forum for neopro writers, and a little while back I posted a question about how I could level up my short story writing. I want to break into the top pro magazines.
There were a lot of excellent answers, but they boiled down to, “You level up by grinding.”
Originally shared by Writers Write
Practice Makes Perfect http://bit.ly/2LRpjQL
Mike Reeves-McMillan lives in Auckland, New Zealand, the setting of his Auckland Allies contemporary urban fantasy series; and also in his head, where the weather is more reliable, and there are a lot more wizards. He also writes the Gryphon Clerks series (steampunk/magepunk), the Hand of the Trickster series (sword-and-sorcery heist capers), and short stories which have appeared in venues such as Compelling Science Fiction and Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores.
I’ve found this to be the case with literally everything that’s worth doing.
“There ain’t no easy way”
Though there are sometimes skills where a person might have some kind of hefty head start over most other people.
I am reminded of the time that I borrowed the programming textbook from the high school library because I was curious about what my friends were doing. I read it and returned it the next day, having pretty much immediately grasped two school years worth of programming concepts. All that remained for high school purposes was learning some of the idioms, the standard patterns.
I did go on to do plenty of grinding, as programming is a huge field. Sort of like Art, with there being many different purposes for Art, and many different media and styles, some of which are better suited for different tasks. Learning a broad variety is a lot easier if you have some innate skills. But it still takes a lot of grinding.