I received a question about the “10,000-hour rule.” The term comes from the work of K Anders Ericsson. He worked primarily with musicians. The successful ones had put in 10,000 hours of “sustained, deliberate practice.” The question should have been, “Can I become a successful author if I spend 10,000 practicing my writing?” No. You have to start with the base. When I found myself teaching Freshman English, I was shocked that most of my students lacked a basic understanding of the rules of English. You wouldn’t expect to succeed in a math class if you didn’t understand how to multiply and divide. Remember those grade school classes where they drove you crazy trying to teach you fractions? If you ever had any algebra, you had to learn new rules such as “Order of Operations.” Remember the “PEMDAS Rule?” If you forgot it or you don’t know it, this site will refresh your memory https://www.vedantu.com/maths/order-of-operations
English also has its rules. Your spelling problems are mostly solved by today’s word processing programs. Okay, what is a sentence? We could go with subject and predicate, but we don’t use those words daily. It’s a unit of words it expresses a complete thought. Some word processing programs will help you there, or you can use dedicated programs such as Grammarly to correct your grammar. If you’re still unsure, think of attempting to write a program in a foreign language.
There are rules for writing a story. It can be as simple as “a story must have a beginning, middle, and end.” I don’t mean to discourage you. In fact, if you’ve ever written an email, you have started to become a writer. Every author begins with an unheralded editor. A friend, a family member, or maybe even a teacher who helped you with your first story efforts. It’s someone who helped you create a compelling short story or novel. There are many places you can publish your work online. There you will get people who are readers, and their comments can help you grow. To find them, just search using the phrase “self-publishing online.”
You will quickly begin to improve your writing. Who knows, you might be the next Hemingway or Jane Austen.
