By Dave Harris

As a writing coach, I focus on practice and the idea that, for any skilled activity, practice develops skill, and that no matter what our level of mastery, we always benefit from practicing the skill. In this context, “practice” means both small-scale, focused, repeatable, low-consequence activities to increase a skill that will serve their larger purpose (e.g., musicians practice scales to support their ability to play music, tennis players practicing serves to support their ability to compete effectively) or, at a larger scale, an entire career involving actual performance (e.g., a doctor’s medical practice, which has very real consequences for patients).