The Importance of Preparation in Writing
Netflix recently announced that it is developing a sequel to “A Different World,” one of the better television spinoffs ever made. The announcement made me think of the episode where Denise Huxtable (Lisa Bonet) procrastinates on her final research paper and all of the times in college where I wrote a paper either the night before or the morning it was due. I will never go back and read these papers because I imagine that they are all atrocious.
Legendary basketball coach John Wooden famously said, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” However, that quote has been used so often that I fear it has lost its punch, so let’s go with something a little more recent. Earlier this year, Netflix aired “WWE Unreal,” a five-part series offering unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to the wrestling business. In an interview, CM Punk shared his insights on the level of effort that needs to go into a match before the wrestlers even enter the ring, saying, “Experience and time have taught me that you don’t rise to the occasion. You sink to the level of your training and your preparation.”
I have always been a fairly fast writer and have probably gotten faster in the years since college. What made those papers a slog for my professors to grade was not the fact that I wrote them the night before they were due. It was the fact that I did not give them any thought until I sat down in front of my computer.
Today, I still turn in assignments to clients on the day they are due, but the preparation begins much earlier. For starters, I spend a lot of time taking notes and thinking about how I want to lay out the piece so that I have a full map of what I want to say when I go to put the proverbial pen to paper. I also leave enough time now so that I can rework an article if I need to do so.
I realize that these are all basic principles of time management, but I’ll leave you with this video of NFL Hall of Famer Jimmy Johnson discussing the quote, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” As with football, if you approach writing without preparing and under the gun, you may have no choice but to give a subpar performance.
If you enjoyed this piece, you might also like my earlier blog on curing a writer’s block.
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