When you have the attitude and effort, the skill is not far behind.”    Unknown

This little gem is jotted down on a handwritten note of mine. The flow of these three ingredients — attitude, effort, and skill — strikes me as worth exploring. As writers, we often tend to focus on mechanics and craft — on skill building. But maybe this is putting the cart before the horse. Maybe our time and energy are more fruitfully spent cultivating the right kind of attitude and effort. When we do this, the skill we need will just naturally arise: It’s the fruit of our work, not its driver.

So let’s pause and ponder attitude and effort. In a nutshell, attitude is how we work — the mindset we bring to the page. And effort is about what we do — the actions we take to get where we want to go.

What attitude leads to a successful writing session? A few ingredients spring to mind: expectancy, optimism, joy, openness, curiosity, playfulness, and persistence. When we look at being on the page as a gift, we come to it with enthusiasm and fire. Whether we have a good day or a bad day, we are still in the right place at the right time and doing the right thing: We’re writing. And that’s what counts. Do we have to feel great to have a great writing day? Do we have to feel inspired? No. Sometimes our attitude shifts in the act of writing: We can start out feeling sluggish and end up writing something wonderful. But bringing an attitude of openness and curiosity helps make that happen.

What about effort? Effort is often equated with straining, but to my mind, it’s really about reaching. We are taking action, taking the steps we need to take to move forward. This requires energy and intention, but it doesn’t have to be stressful. Yes, we need to push past of our comfort zone and find our second wind — often we’re too easy on ourselves — we don’t go all out until we reach the level of effort that we’re capable of, But that’s not about stress and strain, that’s about intention and commitment.

So let’s go for a fruitful writing session today. Let’s be skilled laborers in the vineyards of verse and word. Let’s bring our A-Game when it comes to Attitude and Effort — and the Skill we need to do the job will take care of itself. Write on!

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