2025 is well under way already, and it's perhaps a bit late to start looking back at the previous year and how I fared. But, well... it's been a stressful January, and it's only really now that I've had both the time and energy to reflect on 2024. The obvious place to start is probably … Continue reading 2024 – My Year in Writing and Reading
Category: Practice
Backman’s First Law of Writing Success
Okay, so I only have one made-up law so far, but I'm not going to be a pessimist just yet and call it Backman's Only Law of Writing Success. I just need to come up with one more idea before I die, dammit. And if that's not happening, I'll just fling out some weak rephrasing … Continue reading Backman’s First Law of Writing Success
Confirmation Bias and Self-delussion
Stepping out of your comfort zone, focusing on improving instead of getting praise. That's what drives us to become better artists. I highly recommend this brief article by Jason S. Riddler on confirmation bias, self-delussion, and how those leads to stagnation. It's worth a read to all us would-be writers (and other striving artists as … Continue reading Confirmation Bias and Self-delussion
Why the 10.000 Hour Rule doesn’t Exist
When most people think about deliberate practice, it's probably in the form of the 10.000 hours rule invented by Malcom Gladwell. Hell, a lot of people who've never heard of deliberate practice, or deep practice as it's sometimes called, know the 10.000 hour rule. The rule states that: With 10.000 hours of practice, you can … Continue reading Why the 10.000 Hour Rule doesn’t Exist
Deliberate Practice – July Stats
Already with one day left of the month, July proved to be my best month yet in regards to getting down practice hours. I ended averaging 3.57 hours a day (my previous best was 3.42). The practice consisted of 15 hours of writing exercises, almost 19 hours of writing stories, more than 73 hours of … Continue reading Deliberate Practice – July Stats
Fiction Writing Practice – Quality vs. Quantity
Those of you who have been following the blog for a while will know by now that I'm putting a lot of effort into utilizing deliberate practice to improve my fiction writing skills. For the last couple of month I've been focusing on getting my practice time up, going from practicing on average 1.5 hours … Continue reading Fiction Writing Practice – Quality vs. Quantity
April’s Stats
The data is in from the past month, and it looks good. I managed to practice my fiction writing skills for almost 3 hours a day, which is the target. 2.9 hours to be specific. So just under the target and a little worse than March, but still far better than what I've generally been … Continue reading April’s Stats
The Dunning-Kruger Effect and how to Avoid it
I've previously written about the Dunning-Kruger effect, here, explaining why people are often terrible at judging their own abilities. Five minutes ago I just stumbled across this short video (5 minutes long) from TED-Ed and thought I wanted to share it with you. It elaborates what the Dunning-Kruger effect is and also briefly explains how … Continue reading The Dunning-Kruger Effect and how to Avoid it
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
A Breakup Letter to a Writer’s Block
Below is a link to one of the best blog posts I've read in a while, a breakup letter to a writer's block. On top of that, it's a truly inspiring post that really highlights what it's like to try and grab a hold of that one dream, that one big goal in life that … Continue reading A Breakup Letter to a Writer’s Block
Toby Backman 