on my way to ten thousand hours

There's this theory out there that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become excellent at something. Gladwell's book Outliers suggests that the people we think of as geniuses are not necessarily inherently more intelligent than others, but they worked hard and leveraged opportunities in their lives. Some of it is instinct, and some of it is training.

Tina Fey is one of my writing heroes. Here's a recent interview of her on Dave Letterman (I know, he's not my favorite late-night host either, but she's great).



My epiphany last fall was that she's (probably) where she is now because of the past decade(s) of work and life experience, not so much because she had sucess handed to her on a platter. So I ask myself, am I willing and able to devote the time that it takes to become excellent at my craft? It's not that I want her exact career, but more that what she's accomplished and how in-tune she is with culture (as a writer and actor) are very inspiring.