Carl Walter was my piano teacher. Once he asked me: ” Do you practice a long, time, and hour at a time? ”
“I try to.”
“Well, don’t, ” he shouted. “When you grow up, time won’t come in a long stretches. Practice in minutes, whenever you can .”
When I was teaching at Columbia, I wanted to write, but too many things filled my days and evenings, I began to conduct an experiment, Whenever I had five minutes unoccupied, I sat down, and wrote a hundred words or so. To my astonishment, at the end of the week I had a sizable manuscript ready for revision. Later on I wrote novels by the same piecemeal method.
Carl Walter has had a great influence on my life. To him I owe the discovery that even very short periods of time add up all useful hours I need, if I plunge in without delay.
Continuous effort – not strength of intelligence- is the key to unlocking our potential.
