I have often been of the opinion that practice only makes perfect if you’re actively trying to improve. That is, repetition does not guarantee an increase in skills if you’re not seeking to challenge and improve yourself.
Writing has been hard for a long time. A while back I realized it had something to do with the words– with thinking about the words rather than being caught up in the story. When I’m caught up, it’s much easier, and faster. I realized this but I couldn’t really identify any more than that and I kept on slogging away at the words. I kept hoping one day the words would get easier, magically– that if I kept on slogging I’d somehow learn to write more quickly again.
It just now occurred to me that was repetition for repetition’s sake– that if I want to improve my speed, I need to stop trying the same thing over and over and over again without any basic variation or analysis. I know thinking about the words isn’t fast. It doesn’t work. Why am I still doing it?
Time to start practicing something new.
In other news, Robin can roll from back to side to front, given the slightest bit of uneven surface to start from. No progress on front to back. Practice, practice.
Angie 10:51 am on December 20, 2007 Permalink
Beating your head against something over and over again does not help, if you’re not slowly breaking that wall down (instead of caving your head in). Back when I was first struggling with school, someone told me, “If it’s not hard, that means you’re not learning,” which made a lot of sense. Not that I was able to make this work for me, mind you, but it made a lot of sense.
Is there anything in particular that really catches you up, or is it just an unexpected zen thing that comes out of nowhere? I know nothing of writing, so am not much help, but certainly offer encouragement!
Chrysoula 3:16 pm on December 20, 2007 Permalink
I think I did my best pre-writing visualization when I was riding a bus. Followed by when I was driving regularly. Without a period of time each day when I have nothing else to do (and probably that thought-provoking engine vibration as well) I just don’t… daydream the same way. Which means that when I write, I rarely have a big dream I’m describing. Instead I’m just describing… a sequence of events. It’s turning into a bad habit, so that even when I do have an ideal chance to drift off, instead of dreaming, I think too hard about words and sentences. Planning out a paragraph gives me a paragraph, but dreaming a scene gives me a chapter.
Anyhow, regular bus trips are not really possible, not ones without a regular dream-interruption, anyhow. So I’m hopefully going to figure out a way to train myself to daydream properly… maybe while doodling or something. And if that doesn’t work I’ll try to come up with something else entirely… to be honest, I’m sure childcare would help. If I could get a guaranteed 3 hours a day with no family to distract or tempt me, I bet I could get more done. But I can’t sit around and wait until that’s possible. I’ve got too many fronts that I need to make progress on, even if it’s only step-by-step.
Chrysoula 3:22 pm on December 20, 2007 Permalink
I agree about the hard thing, by the way, but I think there’s more to it than ‘hard=learning’. I think you have to study why it’s hard and change up what you’re doing to see if changes make it less hard. My very limited baseball/softball experience… I never got any better at swinging the bat, no matter how hard it was, until somebody told me to keep my elbows down. I did and my swings got better. And easier, too. It was a breathtaking moment. (And not being able to /see/ myself is of course why coaches are good.) If I’d wanted to keep on improving I would have had to set new goals that were hard.
Dunno how that relates to book learning, exactly. Sometimes even if you CAN figure out why it’s hard (like, I have problems parsing symbols), changing it is far too much work just to get a passing grade.
Angie 12:53 pm on January 3, 2008 Permalink
…and I’m used to comment notifications so only now saw your replies, sorry!
Does Robin nap much, or are you trying to get other stuff done around the house while he does (I dunno how he naps, exactly; Izzy and Teo behave completely differently with such)? Do you need a long-time sit-down to get your daydream on, generally, or might you be able to do it in shorter sprints (not that dreams should feel like a push), or something? I agree that you shouldn’t wait until the stars/family align to give you hours to yourself, but also want to make sure you have time for this, because it’s important. I dunno!
And the learning, that’s a good point, too–there was one thing (I forget which) in calculus that I had someone explain to me differently, and it was a freaking revelation, something just slotted into place, like what you describe with baseball. So it’s definitely not just practice/work=learning, it’s true.