More work

Lately I have been talking about the topic of work. I would like to tell you a story from my past on this topic.

In 1986 I won the Atlantic County Social Science Fair, computer programming competition. The fair was pretty big - there were hundreds of kids there from throughout New Jersey, and I had to walk up in front of all of them to accept the award.

But let's step back a bit and talk about how I "made" this happen. The year before, I had entered the same competition. I wrote a computer program called "Geography Quiz" - it showed you pictures of the Earth and asked you questions. I spent about 10 hours on it. For some reason I fully expected to win the contest that year. I had a very rude awakening when my entry had zero impact.

After losing in 1985, I decided to create a major program for the next fair. It would be similar to the movie Wargames - a graphic simulation of a nuclear war. I spent months on it. I went to the library and did research on the types of nuclear missles, cities in Russia, the pyhsics of nuclear explosions, etc. I remember getting to the room at the fair where the computers were running our entries, and sitting next to a "smug" kid who seemed to think he was a shoe-in - just like me the year before. He was in for a similar rude awakening.

As you know, I ended up winning that year. I was completely un-surprised. I again fully expected to win; I had put in about 100x the work of any of the other kids.

The point if this story is about the amount of work people put into their creative works. Whoever puts more hours into their work will most likely be at the top of their creative field. Some people seem to think that their "talent" will carry them; such people will easily be topped by someone who simply puts in a few more hours than they do. People sometimes tell me I'm "talented"; I respond that I could barely draw 7 years ago, before I read over 50 art books and put in 100s of hours of practice.