So the stats from May are in, and it turned out to be my best month yet as seen on the graph below. I managed an average of 3.09 hours of practice a day, barely beating the 3.02 hours from March. It came about with just above 5.5 hours of writing exercises, 16.8 hours of … Continue reading Practice Stats – May
Category: Deliberate Practice
March Stats – Goal Grabbing
So, yeah, I'm kind of bombed. I finally reached my goal of doing, on average, three hours of deliberate practice per day throughout an entire month. I should be happy. I should be smiling all over. I should celebrate achieving one of my major writing goals. And don't me wrong, I am happy. The thing … Continue reading March Stats – Goal Grabbing
February Stats – 2018
So the stats for February are in, and they're a mixed bag of nuts. Well, actually the stats are quite nice aside from one point -- the amount of time I wasted. In fact the month was going along quite splendidly until I was out with some friends one Friday night, having a few beers. … Continue reading February Stats – 2018
January Practicing Stats – Now with Graphs
So January was the month were I finally got started on doing my writing exercises again after NaNoWriMo, the Christmas holidays, and moving into our new house. It was also was the month were I finally managed to get three hours of deliberate practice pressed into one day. And I did that three days in … Continue reading January Practicing Stats – Now with Graphs
Stat Update
I've been so busy with NaNoWriMo lately that I haven't really been updating the blog. Well, it's time to fix that. Though, it'll be a short update. In my last stat update I'd reported on spending just above 33 hours on what I consider deliberate writing practice during a three week period. Now it's been … Continue reading Stat Update
My Stats
So I've been talking a lot about deliberate practice lately, and I wanted this blog to focus, at least partly, on the way I use deliberate practice to improve my fiction writing. That of course requires that I actually sits down and does some writing. So how much time do I actually manage to practice? … Continue reading My Stats
Perfect Practice
Keeping in line with my earlier post about Deliberate Practice, I found this cool little TEDx talk (see below) about how a high level pianist practices. It illustrates nicely how it's not just the amount of time you spend practicing that counts but also how you practice. Worst case, you could be practicing bad habits, … Continue reading Perfect Practice
Deliberate Practice In Detail
I've been rambling a bit about deliberate practice and how I try to apply to my writing. So I think it's time I go into a little more detail about what exactly deliberate practice is. Unlike play, deliberate practice isn't inherently enjoyable. There's no instant gratification. So you got to have the discipline to sit … Continue reading Deliberate Practice In Detail
Deliberate Practice and the Dan Plan – part 2
Last time I promised a look at how apply deliberate practice to writing fiction, and bit more details about why the Dan Plan failed. So here goes. The often repeated writing advice out there is probably Write a lot. But if you listen to pro writers such as Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, or Dean … Continue reading Deliberate Practice and the Dan Plan – part 2
Deliberate Practice and the Dan Plan – part 1
I've mentioned briefly in previous blog posts how important I think it is to practice the right way if you want to excel at your craft. And that was actually my primary reason for starting this blog. I wanted to use it as a way of documenting my own progress and set-backs and to show … Continue reading Deliberate Practice and the Dan Plan – part 1
Toby Backman 