good morning Hank it's Tuesday you know
it's been years several of them actually
since I turned on this camera without
knowing what I was going to talk about
maybe I'll talk about that so when I was
starting out as a writer someone told me
that when Ray Bradbury was asked how to
write a good short story he said write
one short story every week for a year
because nobody can write 52 bad short
stories and I really took that advice to
heart but two things one having now been
asked that question a lot I suspect that
what Ray Bradbury was trying to do was
not so much offer good advice as make
the question go away in a clever and
gentle manner and also to lots of people
can write 50 to bad short stories in a
row I mean I could as anybody who's read
my zombie corn pocalypse stories can
attest but the thing that's true about
Bradbury's advice is that you have to
practice now practice is one of those
English words with like 52 different
meanings some of which contradict each
other like in a sports context practice
is what you do to prepare for the real
thing but in other contexts practice is
the real thing as when you practice
medicine or practice the dark arts or I
guess in the case of Madam Pomfrey
potentially sometimes both so I was very
fortunate to begin my writing career as
a book reviewer writing 175 word book
reviews for Booklist magazine this
forced me to read a lot but also to read
really broadly picture books in young
adult novels and romance novels set in
Scottish castles and Islamic history and
books about boxing and poetry and yes
also many books about conjoined twins
and that meant lots of practice in both
the affirmation context not just
practice reading but also reading with
an eye toward what kind of experience
the book offered and to whom I might
recommend it and reviewing also forced
me to practice writing in 175 word units
and by practicing that form over and
over again I learned how to insert a bit
of nuance into plot summary or which
detail or quotation to choose I also
developed a weird internal clock for
knowing what 175 words feels like like I
know it's been about 175 words since I
said Madam Pomfrey which is in no way
useful but the other stuff has been very
useful because while writing a book
review is very different from writing a
novel I already had a lot of practice at
thinking about what stories can do and
how they do it and reviewing also
brought a lot of structure and
discipline
to my life it taught me that I had to
make writing a practice if I wanted to
be good at it I should say I'm not like
a naturally disciplined or organized
person as best expressed by my car which
is extremely messy like my dear friend
Hasan once commented that every time he
walks up to the passenger side of my car
he expects to see a rat sitting in the
passenger seat holding a little handbag
saying where are we going today I am
very messy and undisciplined and I love
to procrastinate but I have also learned
to love practice because it works it
doesn't work immediately like in the
early days of reviewing books I often
finished a book with no idea of what I
wanted to say about it in the early days
of making vlogbrothers videos I often
ran up against deadlines because I
didn't have ideas for videos but over
years of practice that starts to change
like people often ask me if I ever run
out of ideas for vlogbrothers videos and
I suppose that I do but by making this a
consistent practice for over 13 years
now in the same way my brain just kind
of knows what a hundred seventy five
words looks like my brain just kind of
knows that starting Saturday if it
doesn't have an idea it needs to find
one and so my brain starts working on it
thinking about what I've learned this
week what's been bothering me where I'm
finding hope if I'm finding it maybe
it's time for a silly video maybe I
shouldn't script one and it keeps
working until I've had an idea and after
so many years I almost always have one
by Monday night so for me making things
doesn't lead to me using up all my ideas
the practice of finding and expressing
thought leads to more thoughts so
whether I'm editing a video were
recording a podcast or writing a novel
what I'm really doing and what I really
love is practicing Hank
thanks for practicing with me I'll see
you on Friday