The Gold Standard (and why I get bronze)

During my ‘free December,’ I watched a lot of competition reality television. My favorite was “Worst Cooks in America” which featured Chef Anne Burrell and another chef (Tyler Florence, Bobby Flay, Carla Hall, Rachael Ray) who seek to turn kitchen zeroes into kitchen heroes. These folks were really bad. I mean, cutting-celery-with-scissors-bad. I mean, adding-peanut-butter-to-chili-bad. I mean, not-washing-hands-after-touching-chicken-bad. I like this show for the same reason I like to teach: you watch someone learn a new skill that has the potential to change their life.

Chef Anne’s teaching style differs from that of her colleagues, but they remain consistent in at least one teaching aim: you must repeat the lessons in order to learn them well. Think of how good Chef Anne Burrell is at chopping onions. She didn’t get that way overnight. She spent years chopping onions and smashing garlic.

What does all this have to do with writing? Here’s the thing: the gold standard is to write every day because it allows you to repeat lessons, to be consistent.

Much like the aspiring home cooks on the show, I wonder why my finished product doesn’t look like how I envisioned it. My writing process gets stymied during a certain analyses. I find that certain tasks take longer than I thought. I begin to understand how little I actually know.

The truth is that I don’t create new words each day. Some days, my writing time is a meeting with someone. When seeking permissions for the use of song lyrics, I had to spend time trading emails with folks. When working on applications, I am definitely doing less writing in the project than I am on the project. My perfectionist self says that I don’t meet the gold standard, that I place bronze. However, the writing process is just that: a process. So, each day does not require the same actions as the day before.

Embrace this excitement.