An article titled What It Takes to Be Great points to research findings that hard work and ‘deliberate practice’ decide the level of success someone will achieve, not talent.  Deliberate practice is defined as being “activity that’s explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one’s level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.”

The Finance and Money folks have taken the discussion in a business direction, but the studies are drawn from across fields such as music, athletics, chess mastery, and even Napoleanic prowess.  The rough sum of it is that if you put in ten+ years in your field with this highly motivated level of practice geared toward improvement and repetition of improvement you’ll soon be the cream floating on top of the skim.

So is it true?  And does it apply to writing?

I think it is and does.  Of course, there are variables.  If you’re writing in a language that is not your first language you’ve got obstacles before you that amount to an extra bump in the middle of your race track.  If you pick a field where you’re coming from behind the pack (say, you know nothing of politics or the miitary, but you’ve decided to write a military-based political intrigue story) then you’re going to have to work that much harder.  And if you can’t type for love nor money and can’t learn ’cause your hands have arthritis–things are going to be much harder.

Also, I think people gravitate toward that which interests them.  They like what they feel good at, when compared to peers.  And they can dedicate themselves to mastering that field and do so.

So that’s the pep talk.  If there’s any gold at the rainbow’s end you’ll only get it after hiking for miles, charting the relative humidity and rainbow-favorable conditions in the area, and learning the tongue-twisting language of the Leprechauns.  If you word hard and smart it’ll take you ten to thirty years.  But it’ll be one sweet little pot of gold when you get it.