Crossing Mountains (one pebble at a time)
I came across this quote in one of my puzzle books:
Where’s your focus?
moreguefile image
“Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain”. Anonymous
How often, in life and in our writing endeavors, do we focus so hard on the mountain that needs crossed that we trip over the little pebbles along the way? If that happens to you . . . it’s time for a change in focus.
Rather than look at the big job that overwhelms us, chunk the work up into small pebbles and work on them one at a time. Chunking is not a new concept, but how often do we forget that the big jobs are comprised of smaller jobs. One great example is writing a book. Writing a book definitely falls into the category of a mountain. It is a huge undertaking. However, if we stop looking at the mountain and just cross one pebble at a time, we can climb the mountain. Several writers have suggested just writing a certain amount of time or number of words a day. Don’t worry about editing and all those other things, just write. Others may choose to write up an outline of some kind first and just work on a section at a time.
However you choose to organize your work, see if you can’t focus on one pebble at a time. Before you know it, you will have crossed the mountain without even realizing it. Happy Writing!
- Posted in: Writing ♦ Writing quotes
- Tagged: chunking, mountains, small picture, writing
ansuyo
Good idea, Ansuyo…Thanks for the tip!
Thanks Sunshine
Well put, Angie. We keep forgetting that we learned to walk one step at a time. Everything else was also one step at a time as to learned more. Why indeed would writing be any different. Great advice. Thanks.
Thanks Tess. Why indeed? So why do we forget about this? Probably the same reason most babies try to walk all at once… and get frustrated when they can’t lol.