Find the Seed of Inspiration

A word or sentence inspired the artist to write lyrics for a song. The football player spent hours exercising, running the field, perfecting a particular play that would define his success.

Nourish the Seed

Both have teams of professionals who work with them to improve their skills. This isn’t a single day or week process; it takes months, even years, of work and discipline to perfect a technique.

Create the (Growing) Rhythm

A song or story in its original form seldom “sees the light of day,” until it’s refined.

Musicians practice hours to achieve a note, rhythm, or sound that will be recognizable. Days and weeks of editing come from many rewrites and rehearsals. Next, they hire musicians to record the song.

Football players spend months on special diets and exercise regimens. Led by their coaches, they practice with teammates, winning multiple games prior to reaching the Super Bowl.

Water and Fertilize the Crop

Musicians sacrifice time with their family and friends in order to create and release music that appeals to their audience. It takes a team of professionals to cultivate a setting, select wardrobe, makeup, and a look that attracts the artist’s viewers. The executive producer, or other key businesspeople, may suggest additional changes so the song will resonate with the artist’s fans and public.

The football player practices relentlessly off season to prepare for the football season. Whether they play a game on Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday, each game is unique, based on the team they play. They watch videos of the games they have played to see what they could have done better. To help with their strategy, they study the plays of their opponents. Their efforts require time and discipline.

The Storyteller’s Growing Process

As a storyteller, few people see the hours we agonize over a word, line, or sentence in order to create a paragraph, then a page, and another page to create a cohesive story. Taking an idea and nurturing that idea into words takes time and discipline. We each have our own way of writing and putting words on a page.

Our writing practice is as diverse as an award category. We bring our style to the pad, computer, or whatever device one chooses. When we complete a rough draft, the revisions and rewrites begin. We may spend time on one scene slicing and dicing words or the character to reach what we think is perfection.

After rewrites, the author decides their story is ready for a critique partner or team to read their draft. We know what we want our readers to feel when they read our story. Sharing our work with our critique team helps us reach that point of ensuring our readers ‘feel’ our story. Then we follow up with more revisions and rewrites. It takes discipline to receive critical feedback that makes us want to admit defeat, but we persevere. Just as a musician keeps hitting a ‘flat’ when he wants a ‘sharp,’ or quarterback’s hands can’t seem the hold the ball during practice. Practice and refinement are what it takes to create a well-written story.We surround ourselves with team effort to help us perfect a story for release. By the time our editors read our stories, chances are it has gone through many reiterations since the original draft. After the editor has gone over the piece with their red pencil, we spend hours rewriting and refining until our work is flawless.

Harvest Your Result

In the scheme of things, whether it’s a Grammy nod or Super Bowl selection, what no one sees is the time, effort, and frustration that leads to the onstage moment. The hours invested in their endeavor remain unaffected by a win in a particular artistic genre. Whether or not they win, what they value most is knowing their peers appreciate their time and effort.

The story our readers hold is the same as the musician’s finest record or the best play by a football player. In the end, our public sees the final product and not the balled-up pieces of paper that litter our writing space floor. Achievement is the recognition received after hundreds of hours dedicated to perfection.