Natasha Fondren

Number of blog article drafts I find unworthy of publishing: 61. That’s pretty high. Some are unfinished, most are just blah or self-centered, and there’s at least another thirty on my netbook. I think back to the days when I used to blog every day, and now I wonder how I did it.

I have a 4,000ish-word essay in an anthology coming out in April. I’d read the 15ish book series before, but I read them all again to write it. The first essay I wrote for it fell flat and boring and blah.

After the blah attempt, I read the whole series a third time, taking 112,500 words of notes and quotes. (The Kindle makes it easy.) There are, I kid you not, 26 files of attempts, drafts, or notes on this essay in my Essays folder.

(When I was little and had to report my practice times to my piano teacher, I gave numbers that were less than what I’d practiced, so she wouldn’t think me untalented.)

Fiction is much easier on me.

But still, I’ve written over twenty-three 35K-76K novels and novellas for Pseudie (I have a habit of losing stuff once completed, so that number could be higher.) and 50-60ish short stories. Three or four series.

I really only like the last series I wrote, but I can never read my work without cringing at something.

I just re-read the series I wrote before that one, and am disappointed to have to demote it from the I-thought-it-was-decently-written category to the I-don’t-know-why-people-like-this-but-I-do-miss-the-characters category. Still, I am relieved to know that I keep making definite, visible progress with each book I write. (Her first books weren’t very good. She progressed. Her story gives me faith.)

I definitely needed the practice, and I’m quite relieved my stuff is out there under a pseudonym.

The point of this embarrassing confession is that if there’s one thing I’ve taken away from having taught music to hundreds and hundreds of students, it’s that talent doesn’t mean much. “Born” talent was always more a predictor of failure than success, and “Talent Education” is not just a Suzuki sales pitch, but a definite, proven, successful process.

Talent can be taught.

Talent Education is NOT about teaching the already-talented; Suzuki principles are about instilling, creating, and developing talent.

The age you start does make a big difference, but even that can be overcome, as can anything else. I had a student with four fingers on one hand who competed on a state-level. Most of my “talented” students did not come that way; they were made. And no one but another teacher would believe me if you heard them play. Some were even remarkably untalented, in the beginning.

The takeaway is that with enough *smart* practice, talent is indistinguishable from hard work. This article on talent is right.

The inspiration is that on any given day, no matter how much you suck or just feel like you suck, if you practice smart and you go for the numbers, you’ll come out ahead.

What think you? What keeps you going, when the going gets rough? When your faith falters?

* Disclaimer: If you do the same thing in the same way you’ll get the same result.

I’m reading Graceling, by Kristin Cashore. It’s one of those deceptive books, where you think you’re reading a fairly good story, but for the first half you’re a bit puzzled as to why you can’t put it down.

Then BAM! About halfway through, you suddenly realize that this book is one of those books that changes you, one of those books that makes you think about yourself in a new way, one of those books that teaches you something elemental that you can’t quite put you finger on, but you can feel it’s there, working inside you.

And it’s something good.

A “grace” in the book is an extraordinary talent only a few are “cursed” with. Katsa is led to believe her talent is one thing, but halfway through the book, she sits and thinks and studies herself, and realizes her talent is actually something else entirely.

It’s funny, her realization was timed perfectly with my own realization. I was reading along, and for some reason, it occurred to me that the problem I’m having with one of my WIPs is that I’m not empathizing with my characters enough.

As I read further along, I had absolutely no idea where the story was going. In my own writing, this is all but a sin. I’m a “planter.” If a gun goes off at the end, I make sure to place it on the mantle in chapter one. I try to hint at my entire story in the first page, and I try to plant the entire novel in the first chapter. So I was wondering if my stories lack suspense and are predictable.

I decided I would go back and read a few to see.

As I had these two epiphanies, I thought back to those who are big fans of critique partners, because the main reason to have them are to see your work in a different way. It bothers me, sometimes, that I don’t have a burning desire for the whole critiquing thing.

It’s not fashionable.

I love critiquing others’ work, because I learn so much, but to me it’s so close to teaching that I can’t critique their work; they probably wouldn’t get the best of me unless I were their critique partner for a year, or something insane like that, and deconstructed where they are, where they want to go, how to get there, who they are, how they work, and how they learn.

Teaching is so ingrained in me, that critiquing always makes me feel a bit like I’m teaching blindfolded without knowing the student. I know critiquing and teaching are different things, but teaching is me.

But that doesn’t explain why I only ask for help myself rarely and when I’m absolutely desperate or scared. I mean, I love edits. I get a professional crush on most of my professional editors; I think they’re the coolest. Copyeditors, too. People complain about copyeditors, but I love copyedits. They’re fun to play with.

Then I thought about my two epiphanies, and how bored and disappointed I would be if they had come from someone else. I live for these epiphanies; I’m constantly seeking them out, turning my stuff over, looking at it in a different light, analyzing others’ stuff, and deconstructing this writing thing.

I always say I’ll seek out critique partners when I come up empty on how I can improve, but I rarely come up empty.

I realized then my talent isn’t writing; it’s learning, deconstructing, teaching. In piano, I knew how to deconstruct musical talent and teach someone to actually be talented. I can shift my thinking to look at things in a new light. I know how to learn and how to improve. I know how to study others and learn from them.

And that’s not just my “grace,” but my fun, my delight, my raison d’etre.

What is your grace? What is your raison d’etre? Or maybe I mean, what is your raison d’ecrire? (Your reason for writing.)