How to Write a Great Book Without Getting Stuck With Writer’s Block, Self Doubt, or Having to Get an MFA

So in the last video, we talked about how deliberate practice is actually the secret. To your writing and publishing success, but you might still be wondering what is deliberate practice and can it actually help me finish my book? And here's the thing. Everyone thinks that great writers were just geniuses that the Jane Austins of the world and the Ernest Hemingways and Maya Angelou's, that they were these larger than life people that were somehow extraordinary.

And the truth is that what made them special is that they all practiced writing deliberately. So here are the five components of, so here are the five components of deliberate practice.

The first component is theory. You have to learn how to write. This includes things like learning the craft, studying great writing.

Then next is practice. You need to put that theory into practice. You need to do the actual work of writing.

But you also need a coach. You need someone who can look over at your shoulder and hold you accountable, who can teach you the process and help you when you get stuck.

You also need feedback. Sometimes this looks like an editor, a critique group, feedback from readers.

Finally, you need a team you need other writers to learn from and get encouragement from.

Great writers had all five of these things. That's what made them successful. And this is true by the way of all skills, whether you're learning to play the piano, whether you wanna become a pro athlete and even to become a writer.

Now you might think deliberate practice sounds interesting, but you're not sure if you're a good enough writer to actually pull it off.

So let me tell you a story. When I was in the seventh grade, I was the worst writer in my class. I would do fine on multiple choice tests, but whenever we had to write a paper or do essay questions, I would get terrible grades.

And worse I had no idea why my writing was bad. I honestly thought it was just because I had bad handwriting. And so I would painstakingly write my answers so that they were at least legible, but even then I would get bad grades.

Then I had this one teacher, Mrs. Narredo, who came up next to me and showed me a paper I had written and she pointed to the page, which was mostly blank. And she said, see this.

I nodded, and I said, I answered the question correctly didn't I?

And she said, I'm not talking about your answer. I'm talking about this. And she circled the big blank area next to my answer.

I still remember this so many years later. This is an essay, she said, you're expected to fill all of this in.

I said, but I had the right answer.

She said this, "It doesn't matter if you have the right answer if you don't follow the form."

and I was kind of annoyed to be honest, but the next time I had an essay question, I filled in the entire form, just like Mrs. Narretto said, and guess what? I got an A.

And the same thing is true for writers. I thought I was a terrible writer. I honestly thought I was kind of stupid when it came to writing. But when I fixed one small thing, my writing became so much better.

And this leads to an important part of deliberate practice that we touched on earlier. If you want to be successful, if you want to practice deliberately, you need someone who can coach you in the form, whether the form is an essay question or a novel or screenplay or a non-fiction book or a short story, whatever it is. You need someone who can show you the requirements and how that structure works so that you can be successful.

Now, this kind of coach could be reading all the other books in your genre. Definitely. But you also probably need someone to talk through things with you who can look at what you've written like Mrs. Narretto did for me and point out the small things that you're doing that are causing you big problems.

And how do you actually take what you learn and write a great book, especially if you're short on time in the next video. That's exactly what we're gonna be talking about. Stay tuned for that and happy writing.