Kyle Phoenix, Writer and student & Instructor at Columbia University
I started publishing work again and there’s been an explosion. There’s a whole theory about work and 10,000 hours—-4–10 years. That it takes 10k to gain mastery but then what happens? That younger people make greater breakthroughs in math and music because the rules are static and the possibilities limitless so they get to (1) experiment immediately. Literature, painting and such takes more time because not only must you gain a level of (1) mastery over the tools (10,000 hours) but also the (2) domain ((reading other writers) potentially another 10k hours of reading/study) and through (3) deliberate practice receive (4) high level feedback (advanced teachers, adv. writers, editors and mass audiences) on one’s work. Getting all four points and digesting it and forming one’s talent productively is the overall challenge.
( I teach, so I work a lot on how to advance people/accelerate through actions-neuroscience)
Gardner and Greene and others then talk about sort of your churning phase—-when you’re mixing your 20k of writing and reading. The biggest exception to this has been Dylan Thomas who did a lot, quite well and died. The thought is the domain was not as advanced for his avant gardeness. Now we’re at a disadvantage because there’s a multi-thousand chat area called Quora with writers galore, publishers, editors, self published, etc., etc. But has the field of true writing really exploded or is it just fat bottomed….and to what outcome?
My first ten years of writing started as stick figure comic books.
Then I started a journal when my parents had the most explosive divorce in history. He actually hit my mother with a car—-on accident—-on purpose—-on accident——no, wait for it, she sued the rental company the car was from and got a couple of million dollars from it.
I started writing tawdry soap opera-esque/Jackie Collins tangled smut fests.
Then I started writing comic scripts, started an amateur comic company and took creative writing classes in high school where I wrote half a dozen full manuscripts, a screenplay, directed it.
By college, I was accomplished at the tools, 1st person, 2nd, 3rd. And got into classes and with mentors for feedback. I count that as my entrance into my 2nd 10 year/10k phase. The second phase you flounder or fly based on the domain and your commitment or distraction from it. I went halvesies. Throughout college I was published all over the country and pushed to a publisher.
In the 2nd phase I spent a lot of disposable income on books. I’d had maybe 1000 beforehand and maybe 20k in comics, I quadrupled this in just massive intake and purchasing.
So now I’m in the third arc which is Output, if you get to this point which is why most people don’t get past 1 & 2, it takes a lot to just focus on this. I don’t have children yet. Haven’t been married. I’ve been able to at will dedicate the past 20 years to the daemon of writing.
Supposedly we don’t see many “greats” because of the human lifespan. The next phase is when you produce output and receive audience feedback on a mass scale. That success leads to two possible phases (Gardner and Greene looked particularly at musicians) you either keep strumming the same tunes because it sells or you go in different directions. James Patterson and Stephen King——are they really different in idea or avant garde to their own work in form after5, 10, 15 years—-success is it’s own trap because no one wants your wild idea about intelligent goldfish, they want another Carrie or Cujo.
Supposedly it then takes 10 years to work your way through your first “success phase” however much success that is for you and I. But imagine 20–30 years and you might get “stuck” there. There will be new stuff but it won’t be different. Because you need another 10 years to change—-Gardner lists Voltaire as one of the few writers to do this because then you need another 10–20 years to hit your 2nd creative output phase. Conceivably your 60s to 70s depending on when you got started.
The theory is that with time and time investment we could all get to very good and great but that the human lifespan is too short and our desire to change too opposed by success.
I know uplifting and depressing right?
So I see that I have maybe 4 more years of this massive output phase in pure writing (about 1–3 million words a year) and then I’ll have to go to another domain (film, music, I’m thinking to recharge and spend another 10 years learning that before I can look at creating anew.
I think these first 500 books (educational, fiction, non-fiction) must get out of my way for me to discover what my talents are, what I can create. I know that sounds insane but I think I’ll get to my next phase in my 50s/60s and then create my best work. These first 500 are my first 30 years, I’m at year 20–22ish depending on how I count from 11 or so. I think of the 500, maybe 0% will be “good” and maybe 10% of that really transcendent—-here’s the wild part—-even as I write I have no idea which ones are the good ones. Yet.
www.kylephoenix.com
Smile, Kyle
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