The Two 'R's

The Two 'R's

When Jules Verne was a struggling writer, he met Alexandre Dumas who gave him a piece of advice:

"One must write, write and write, everyday at a fixed time. Doesn't matter that the stuff you produce is not of good quality or that you can hardly produce anything at all. If you do so consistently, soon you will find ideas pouring out from your pen"

The actual quote were not in those exact words--I'm quoting from memory (and this was something I read when I was a 14 year old schoolboy), but I believe it is close. It has stuck in my mind ever since.

To me this is the best piece of advice one could give to any writer. I am not a writer but writing is an essential part of what I do as an IT professional. Writing, surprisingly is not recognized as an essential skill one needs in any kind of job. We admire people who speak well (especially in meetings). But the strange thing is that there are many people who speak well but can't produce a simple one-pager writeup.

Executives go for public-speaking courses. Some do go for business writing courses--but that is usually because they think their command of the language is deficient, not because they recognize writing as an important skill.

Reading and writing were among the first skills that we we taught when we were toddlers. We assume that we do both well, but we don't. And it will be quite strange indeed if we do not bother to practise and perfect them anymore.