Silly Writing Expectations

Do you think you can play the piano like Mozart without any lessons? Can you swim like a fish, never having been in the water before? What about fly an airplane like an expert pilot? Or even bake a cake without a recipe? This is a no-brainer. Of course you cannot. It does not take a genius to figure this out. No one would expect you to be able to do these things unless you were some sort prodigy. But yet on the same token, we expect to be able to write like a best selling author on the first try. No one looks at this as being odd. Yet most of us have had no formal training and very little real practice when it comes to writing.

So what is it that makes us think this way? Why is that we expect to be able to write well from the get go? There is a simple answer to this question. Quite simply, it is because you usually write on a daily basis. Just think about how much you write on a regular basis. We sign our name and address on documents. We write notes to our family. We write memos at work. We write letters to friends and family. We make to do lists and grocery lists. And we jot down reminder notes. That seems like quite a bit. All of this is writing, but it is not