The proverb practice makes perfect has in my mind been superseded by practice makes progress, which the Strictly star dancer Katya Jones uses. It’s just more accurate. However much time I spend at the driving range, my golf is never going to be perfect, but it is improving. I posted recently about trying to improve my chess by playing against an AI opponent. I was pleased to have beaten Sven, but Nelson was too good for me. Yesterday I beat Nelson twice in a row. Practice does make progress.
I also think that the time spent with other writers at our MilkTown Writers evenings is time well spent. The diverse writing prompts and challenges force me out of my comfort zone. They may not be moving my novel forward, but they are practice, and practice makes progress.
Talking of progress, I’m now 43,900 words into The Favourite Murder, the fifth book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures. I’m about half way through chapter eight and I have the outline for thirty-two chapters, so it looks set to be around 160,000 words, roughly twice the length of book one, The Spy who Sank the Armada. However long it turns out to be, I think it will be better.
Of course progress can be made in other directions too. Whilst I am of the view that the best way to sell your book is to finish your next book, there are other avenues too. I heard from Clare at Browser Books in Dartmouth yesterday, and it looks as though I will be featuring on a panel and doing book signings for the Dartmouth Book Festival 20th and 21st September. So hopefully that is good progress on the marketing front. And if it isn’t progress, then it will certainly be good practice, which will yield progress later, because… yes, practice makes progress.