{"id":40,"date":"2015-01-12T20:16:21","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T20:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zachbarnesonwriting.wordpress.com\/?p=40"},"modified":"2015-01-12T20:16:21","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T20:16:21","slug":"parentheses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2015\/01\/12\/parentheses\/","title":{"rendered":"Parentheses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a Nordic mountain who wants to\u00a0improve himself. \u00a0You can tell because he’s frowning and stymied and the other mountains are feeling quite sorry for him.<\/p>\n

\"Himmeltindan<\/a>
Himmeltindan near M\u00e6rvoll, Vestv\u00e5g\u00f8y Island, Lofoten Islands, Norway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What I mean to say is, how do you improve yourself?<\/p>\n

Without the context of other writing, one could be reasonably\u00a0content\u00a0in an oblivion of terrible-ness for their entire life (and I think some authors are, but because they’re happy, we should just leave them there). \u00a0When we first look\u00a0outside of ourselves, we discover that we’re not actually the best at what we do, whether it’s writing or badminton or being a decently helpful human being.<\/p>\n

(This reminds me: Bill Gates can now turn\u00a0poop\u00a0into drinking water, and I thought that finishing another chapter of book two was an accomplishment…\u00a0http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/goatsandsoda\/2015\/01\/10\/376182321\/bill-gates-raises-a-glass-to-and-of-water-made-from-poop<\/a>)<\/p>\n

So you’ve seen that you’re not the best–in fact, probably not even close–but that doesn’t mean that you can’t improve your craft. \u00a0And just pushing through it and writing more won’t cut it. \u00a0Getting better means doing a lot of\u00a0smart<\/em> work.<\/p>\n

I learned a neat little trick when I was studying music at James Madison University that I have begun to apply to nearly every facet of my life. \u00a0And that trick is the use of parentheses. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(<\/strong>these guys<\/em>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s how it worked: I’d play through and etude, and 90% of it was okay, but then I’d get to that 10% where\u00a0the shit would hit the fan<\/em>. \u00a0I avoided utter embarrassment by employing\u00a0the musical equivalent of cursing\u00a0under your breath so that your mother\u00a0can’t hear you (which never fools anyone, if you’re wondering).<\/p>\n

By now you’re probably asking, geez, man, how does this apply to writing and\/or life in general? \u00a0I was gravely misled by your first sentence!<\/i> To which I’d say: Of course you were, my first sentence was about a self-aware mountain in Norway!<\/p>\n

This is where using\u00a0parentheses comes in. \u00a0Because when I was practicing those etudes, I’d start at the\u00a0beginning<\/em>, and play through all the stuff that was pretty easy and sounded okay. \u00a0I was essentially patting myself on the back, stoking the trumpet-ego, and accidentally playing things that would make me think\u00a0‘damn, Zach, that sounds really good!’ <\/em>By the time I reached the sections that actually needed work, I was tired, unfocused, but more importantly, thought that I was better than I was.<\/p>\n

New strategy: Step 1) throw parentheses around\u00a0the sections that are god-awful,\u00a0Step 2)\u00a0practice stuff within parentheses\u00a0until\u00a0your weaknesses become your strengths, Step 3) Apply to life and profit.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you want to improve your writing, break down the steps writers use to create books:<\/p>\n

Bad at dialogue? \u00a0Don’t avoid it, write a scene using\u00a0ONLY dialogue until you’re a total dialogue badass.<\/p>\n

or<\/em>, a\u00a0description-writing badass<\/p>\n

or,<\/em>\u00a0an outlining machine<\/p>\n

or,<\/em> you get the picture…<\/p>\n

Don’t let the other aspects of your\u00a0skill (writing, bowling, etcetera) go un-practiced, but if you only have one hour every day to write\/bowl\/etc., you need to use that time as effectively as possible by working on the aspects of your writing\/bowling\/etceteraing that needs the most help.<\/p>\n

When your biggest weakness becomes one of your strengths, remove the parentheses,\u00a0reevaluate, and only then, when you think you can’t get any better\u00a0*evil chuckle* find a new place to put parentheses!<\/em><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t steal\u00a0my words. \u00a0They\u2019re mine. \u00a9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s how it worked: I’d play through and etude, and 90% of it was okay, but then I’d get to that 10% where the shit would hit the fan. I avoided utter embarrassment by employing the musical equivalent of cursing under your breath so that your mother can’t hear you (which never fools anyone).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amazonpipp_noncename":"","amazon-product-isactive":"","amazon-product-single-asin":"","amazon-product-content-location":"","amazon-product-content-hook-override":"","amazon-product-excerpt-hook-override":"","amazon-product-singular-only":"","amazon-product-amazon-desc":"","amazon-product-show-gallery":"","amazon-product-show-features":"","amazon-product-newwindow":"","amazon-product-show-list-price":"","amazon-product-show-used-price":"","amazon-product-show-saved-amt":"","amazon-product-timestamp":"","amazon-product-new-title":"","amazon-product-use-cartURL":"","amazon_featured_post_meta_key":"","_amazon_featured_alt":"","amazon-product-template":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[27,29,52],"tags":[65,94,109,113,132,144,171],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":934,"url":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2016\/04\/18\/workout-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":0},"title":"Workout Time","date":"April 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I'd like to borrow a tired chich\u00e9 from my music education experience, which is that the \"practice makes perfect\" mantra is misleading. Practice makes permanent is more often true. Only perfect practice makes perfect. Which raises the question: how does one practice writing?","rel":"nofollow","context":"In \"Advice\"","img":{"src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":983,"url":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2016\/04\/25\/master-insights-stephen-king\/","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":1},"title":"Master Insights: Stephen King","date":"April 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"What King is saying is not to avoid writing darlings, but rather to remove them from the final product. This is important because I believe that breathing life into those \"darlings\" is one of the best ways a writer can improve his craft.","rel":"nofollow","context":"In \"Advice\"","img":{"src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1214,"url":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2016\/05\/24\/daniels-10-minute-rule\/","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":2},"title":"Daniel's 10 Minute Rule","date":"May 24, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"When I meet a new writer, musician, artist, or any other creative type, the foremost question that intrigues me is: \"how do you keep yourself on track?\"","rel":"nofollow","context":"In \"Advice\"","img":{"src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}