What Does An African Probverb Have To Do With Writing?
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 15th, 2006 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Absolutely nothing! I just wanted to share with you something that I read in Thomas L. Friedman’s best-selling book The World Is Flat. On page 114 he recites an old African proverb that many of you may have heard, it goes like this.
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.Every morning a lion wakes up.It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running.
This proverb has been used in a number of ways, for me in realtion to business and athletics, but when I re-read it recently I felt it had some application to writers. Every day someone somewhere is sitting down to write a great book. If you aren’t writing, something, everyday, your competition is gaining on you.
I’m not trying to equate writing with life or death and I’m certainly not making a comparison between this proverb and the exercise of writing. I merely want to make the point that it is very important to write everyday.
There is no one writing with your voice, your life experiences, your background and education that will write your story the way you will. However, that story may never be written, unless, you find the time to write, everyday. Regardless of whether what you write will ever be published, the fact that you are writing and improving your skill is what is important.
I’m not trying to make a distinction between who is the gazelle and who is the lion, although a case could be made that the publishers are the lions and the writers the gazelles. Because if writers don’t pay attention to what publishers are doing, then the process of publishing books will consume them and their career. The future of writers depends on their ability to know what is happening, when, and how they can become a part of the decision making surrounding the publication of their book.
Let me help you! WritersReaders.com is for writers.
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