10 Years or 10,000 Hours

My father-in-law was telling me recently about an article he read that discussed something called the theory of mastery, or something close to that. The basic idea is that to truly mater a craft or skill (be it writing or basketball), you have to practice it for 10 years or 10,000 hours.

I’ve been writing now for about five years. I’m talking (almost) every day, in one format or another, writing. Some days I write for hours, some days I only get thirty minutes in, but I am very diligent about getting my fingers on this keyboard. So just for fun, let’s see how far down the road to mastery I am:

To be conservative, let’s say I write 300 days a year. After 5 years that’s 1500 days. Now let’s say I write an average of three hours a day. I think that’s low, but let’s run with it. So I’ve practiced writing for about 4,500 hours. Of course that’s only since deciding to be a professional writer. I’m not counting any writing I did before five years ago, and there was a fair amount.

So I’m about half way to mastery, both in years and hours practiced. That sounds about right. I certainly am holding my own as a professional, but when it comes to my fiction, especially my novel, I still feel like I have so much to learn. I wonder if I will feel different in 2016 when I am finally a master. I might have to through a party and make everyone call me “master” for the night. And a hat. I will definitely need a funny hat.