300 is a nice movie. Admittedly, the movie is mostly blood, gore, screams and half naked men with great abs, yet it is a great movie. The quality of the movie, however, is not what this post is about. This post is about something I realised as I was watching the movie.
In one scene, King Leonidas, and his 300 men, meet a group of Arcadians, led by Daxos. Daxos is dismayed at seeing only 300 men, and he tells Leonidas that he was expecting the number of Spartans to be at least as much as the Arcadians. At that Leonidas asks three Arcadians what their profession was, and the answers he gets are potter, sculptor, and blacksmith respectively.
Spartans, of course, were soldiers by profession, each and every one of them. That was exactly what made Spartans a formidable fighting force.
The lesson to be learnt here is simple.
I use the word writer in the title to signify someone who writes, and then gets read by a substantial number of readers. One might look at some of the bigger names in the field, and assume that writing is a short cut to name, fame and money. Many believe in this fallacy, take the plunge, and realise later – often, when it’s too late – that they have made a mistake.
Most of us believe in the Writing Block, just as we believe in the Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy. I have always believed that writing block is nothing but the writer getting lazy. It can’t, however, be denied that most of us, at one point of time or another, go through phases where writing anything becomes difficult – almost impossible.
It is often said that writing is a combination of talent and hard work. Some say it is talent that is more important, while others say it is the hard work that pays. Without going into this unending debate, I will let you answer this question for yourself, “What do you think is more important : talent, or hard work?”
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