Last Week’s WW: Working With Others

My fella was talking about themes the other day, and he brought up the fact that some people miss the points of some stories.  One such story he brought up was The Tortoise and the Hare.

He asked me: “what’s the point of the story?”

I immediately responded: “Slow and steady wins the race.”

He asked me to think about it.  I did, and I realized that it didn’t matter what the turtle did.  If the hare hadn’t been over confident and messed it all up, he would have won hands down.  The real meaning of that story seems to be “keep your eye on the prize.”

I think that the moral of this story can be applied to writing.  There’s a lot of people who will say write fast, throw it on Amazon, and it’ll all be fine.  That’s the magic formula.  Only, it’s not.  Troll the Kboards and you’ll find a lot of people that this isn’t working for.  Yes, writing fast is an asset.  But you can’t be over confident.  And conversely, you can’t give up.   When you write, when you publish, when you promote, you have to remember why you’re doing it.  Writing is hard.  Publishing is harder.  Keep your eye on the prize, or someone else might beat you to it.   Remember why you’re writing, or you may never even finish the race.