Good Writing, unlike many other things, never goes out of fashion – neither do good writers. Jeffrey Archer, or Lord Jeffrey Archer, as he is now known, is on a visit to India – his first official one. He had never toured India before because, as he said, he had never received an invitation to do so before. I am glad he did now.
Living in a small town has many upsides, and anything that has an upside is sure to have a downside. The downside of living in a small town is that small towns usually do not form a part of any celebrity tours. It’s no different this time, and Jeffrey Archer will not be coming to my town.
So, the only thing I can do is watch him on TV, and I did that yesterday. From the advice he gave to the young writers in the crowd, he seemed like a very practical man. But, I did not agree with everything he said on the show.
Jeffrey Archer said that success is a mix of energy and talent. He further added that a guy with energy and no talent could still be a prince, but a guy with talent, but no energy would be a pauper.
I especially disagree with that last sentence. Firstly, I don’t think any generalizations of this sort can be made. What succeeds and what doesn’t can only be known when a thing has either succeeded or failed. Since hindsight is perfect, it is easy to single out one reason for a person’s success or failure, even though there might have been a large number of factors that conspired to bring about the said success, or failure.
But, if a generalization has to be made, I would say that a fairly good amount of talent along with a little amount of hard work can go a longer distance than a lot of hard work with very little talent. I am not trying to undermine the value of hard work here, but I am trying to give talent it’s due.
What do you think is more important: hard work or talent, especially for a writer?
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