Wednesday, March 21, 2012

10,000 Hours

Frogs have nothing to do with this post.


In the book outliers there is a chapter about how people that "outlie" (I don't think that is actually a word but you'll have to get over it.) in their particular fields always have 10,000 hours doing that thing before they really succeed at it.



At my recent illustration conference (I know I keep talking about it but this is my last post on it for now) I met a guy with at least 10000 hours drawing stories. He told a story about getting his first book published that went something like this:

 "My friend and I had this story we worked on and I did the illustrations and we showed it to an agent and he sold it to a publisher. Now I have a contract for my second book. The End"

My first thought was, "wow, I wish it would work like that for me."

My second thought was "Wait, there must be more to his story."

There was. It turned out this man was the writer and illustrator of a syndicated comic strip for about five years. He totally had 10,000 story writing hours in before he wrote illustrated and published a children's book, seemingly just like that.

His name is Mark Pett. Probably some of you have heard of him.

I'm pretty sure I have 10,000 drawing hours. But I also want the story writing and illustrating hours. Thus very soon. (although I don't have an exact date yet) I will be starting a new blogastory (that link goes to my first attempt). That's the plan.

On what do you want to get your 10,000 hours?


 Buy Prints or Cards and Gifts illustrated by Manelle. 

5 comments:

  1. Manelle, you are inspiring. I was thinking about doing a blogastory myself and turning it into an ebook. I will tweet about yours. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That sounds like a great plan, Manelle! Looking forward to the next story. 10,000 hours, here we come!

    ReplyDelete
  3. thanks. I'm excited about my next story idea but I have to get my "real" deadline done first. we'll get there though. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. 10,000 hours rarely seem to show up in public. It's always hidden away in someone's sketchbook, past projects and time alone. Thanks for the post!

    ReplyDelete
  5. True, True, I guess we don't want people to see our mistakes. :)

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...