So You Think You Can Write?

If you're already writing eloquent comments in response to some of my blog pieces (you know who you are) and you've always wanted to publish something, I want you to strongly consider submitting a written piece to ViewsHound (www.viewshound.com) before October 16, 2011.  You could win a $250 cash prize for doing so.  And, even more importantly, so could I . . .

During my three months of submitting written pieces to ViewsHound, I've earned $260 in prize money and I've never had a piece rejected.  They are very good about publishing various points of view so even if (especially if!) you disagree with something I've written, this is your chance at rebuttal.  I'm a big advocate of written expression and I think that more people have this skill languishing inside of them instead of being developed.  Writing is like any other skill in life:  the more you do it, the better you get and the more confident you feel.  So . . . get back on that horse and ride.

Here are the official instructions:

"Go to a great site I use called ViewsHound, at http://www.viewshound.com, sign in and enter "Debutopia" for “Where did you hear about us?” Then submit an article, photo or cartoon for them to publish. Whoever recruits the most new authors wins $250, and your submission could win you $250 too, in addition to ViewsHound’s daily cash prizes. Please do it today and let’s see if we can win!"

On Monday, October 17th, 2011 the $250 prize money came my way!  I'd like to thank you if you were one of my readers who submitted a written piece to ViewsHound.  If you didn't submit a piece, remember that it's never too late to start writing.

10,000 Clicks; 10,000 Hours

Have you heard about the "10,000 Hour Rule"?  In order to achieve expertise in a cognitively complex discipline, such as is demonstrated by pilots and surgeons and musicians and chess champions, it takes 10,000 hours of practice.  That's four hours of practice a day for ten years running.  That's a lot of practice.  Often, too, all this hard work is out of the public eye and not really all that much fun.  Intellectually complicated tasks take more than mere intelligence, they also require many hours of mind-numbing work.  In his 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell constantly reinforced this theme:  that genius is not the only or even the most important ingredient for success.  I'm no genius and the jury's still out on whether or not this blog represents an "intellectually complicated task" but by the time I go to bed tonight I will have had 10,000 hits on my blog and I can tell you, with all honesty, that underneath the surface of my writing there has been a lot of good old-fashioned hard work.