Malcolm Gladwell noted that you need 10,000 hours to be a phenom or freakishly awesome. He wrote about elitee performers (violinists) who each totaled ten thousand hours of practice. I noticed that after my first 10,000 hours of writing, my writing improved exponentally. Hiring someone with that level of experience is the best way to get writing done.
In Gladwell’s book, “Outliers”, he quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin who wrote,“The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything.”
“To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fisher got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) And what’s ten years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.”
—-Malcolm Gladwell
After writing many many articles since 1991, I have learned some amazing things about writing that beginner writers currently don’t understand.
- Interviews with multiple experts give a fifth dimension to writing.
- When you do the research, the story writes itself.
- Since I read 20-50 articles a day which is also over 10,000 hours, I can tell in three sentences if the writer knows how to write.
- Writing about breaking technology involves a higher understanding of the subject matter than other topics. I’ve seen in recent years, writers who make technical mistakes that are deleterious to the industry they write about.
- You can’t always believe the news release, especially with startups.
- Email interviews don’t work.
- Few writers find the most important source the original source.
- Good writing is not cheap, you get what you pay for.
- If you miss the deadline, your career is dead.
- People love to tell me their secrets when I use the right techniques.
There are many more secrets, I have learned by writing breaking news stories, feature articles, blog posts, news releases and almost any kind of writing you can think of.
When you hire me, you get someone who has surpassed the magical 10,000-hour mark. I don’t think in Tweets, I think with a full overview of several very important industries. I find original stories and don’t regurgitate the “same old,” like newbie writers do.
I have nothing against writers who are fresh out of college. Hire them if you like. You are paying for them to learn on your time. When you hire an experienced writer, like me, Lynn Walford- I get the job done, on time and without you having to worry.