Question. What qualifies one to be a master of their craft? Is it their style, does it have to do with their fundamentals, or maybe because of their doyen status? In this time, when there is a surplus of tools and resources, the community isn’t so stringent on the specifics of your capabilities.
Although I have always loved writing, I’m gonna be honest and tell you that grammar has always been my Achille’s heel. I just never got it. To this day, I need to search up basic grammar because I’ve never written mechanically. If it sounded right, I kept the sentence. If not, I would revise and revise until I discovered the ‘secret sauce’ that succinctly vocalized my thoughts. This method definitely took some time, but my speed progressed and while there may still be some errors here and there, my sentence structure has definitely improved. Yet, I know I can continue to get better.
Learning your craft isn’t easy. It’s fun and challenging in an exhilarating way. Once you find your passion and are set on excelling, ultimately your goal will take you to breaking your barriers to eventually exceed farther than what originally you deemed yourself capable of. There are bound to be weak joints in the frame. We aren’t perfect at everything – especially so at the beginning. Will you let your humanness impede on your dreams?
There were many times I would scoff at myself, ridiculing my efforts as only a jest. How can someone so terrible at grammar know and excel in writing? Well, I had something bigger to believe in. My love of writing, so I continued to practice. Learning about dialog, story structure, character, beats, and more. The skills that I cultivated superseded my impostor syndrome, letting me write unabashedly and freely.
From the years I spent writing, there was something extraordinary that I concluded. Writing isn’t about the equation, but the heart writers instill within every piece. Proper grammar, usage of literary grammar, marvelous story plotting means nothing without the heart. To put it bluntly, tools without the toolbox to put it in are meaningless.
Mind you, I’m not advising anyone to just settle in their capabilities and wing it. Hard work, practice and efforts still mean something. If you have a weakness, why let it fester and inhibit the rest of your capabilities? No matter how much you’ve honed most of your tools, if there’s 1 brittle and rusted tool in the toolbox, regardless of your other efforts, the work will be insufficient at best because that one faulty tool will take away from everything else. That’s why it’s so important to remember you determine how far you will go. The only thing holding you back is the determination and fortitude to see it through.
If you really feel like something isn’t right, there’s a piece that’s simply not cutting it, work it through. Take a breath, revisit with clean eyes, reread, and retry. There is no simple way to get better. The fire only burns when you instill the fuel.
“The Between” now available.