I never liked doing my piano scales.

My parents started me on piano lessons at the age of seven (God bless ’em!), and I quickly developed what’s known as “a good ear.” It was very, very crude at first, but I was able to translate music that I heard or knew in my head into some form on the keyboard. This skill provided, and continues to provide unending pleasure at the piano. It also catalyzed the premature death of my formal piano education.

The fact that I could pick out songs I liked—never mind that they were often uber-simplistic pop songs, or at least uber-simplistic renderings—gave me increasingly little patience for the hard work required to learn unfamiliar pieces or learn to play with any kind of technical finesse. I was all too content with the catharsis and immediate gratification of my amateur playing-by-ear.

I devolved from resentfully doing my scales and putting in the work to learn a piece, to refusing to make the effort at all. Sometime in junior high, after repeatedly coming to my lessons ill prepared and unmotivated, my teacher graciously suggested that I throw in the towel.

I regret doing so every single time I sit on a piano bench.

Writing this blog is like doing my scales (I don’t claim any originality with that metaphor). Some days I rush to the computer with some topic or premise burning to get elaborated. I have a proverbial tune stuck in my head, and I can’t wait to figure out how to play it. But a lot of days (today included), the blank screen and the obnoxiously blinking cursor taunt me. I’ve got nothing to write about—no song in my head—so why not just pack it in and call it a day?

The answer to that question, for me, always goes back to the scales I refused to do. I refused to put in the hard work, the often tedious, repetitive labor required to become proficient on the piano. I was willingly tyrannized by the days when I “just don’t feel like it.” I never acquired the discipline and endurance necessary to push beyond the borders of mediocrity. And the result is a constant frustration with my limitations as a pianist.

I refuse to be similarly tyrannized as a writer. I started this blog for a number of reasons, but one explicit reason was that of a conscious discipline; producing content of a certain standard with a certain consistency. And on those days I don’t feel like writing or don’t have anything to write about, I strap my keester to the chair and point a gun at my fingers demanding that they write something. Anything. The consequences for my failure to do scales as a pianist motivate me to do my scales as a writer.

The result is the cultivation of discipline. I keep the literary rust and atrophy at bay. I thumb my nose at those don’t-feel-like-it feelings. The result, hopefully, is that I am refined as a writer. My chops improve, as does my ability to write in less-than-ideal circumstances.

The other result is this self-indulgent, vacuous entry which, I’m sure, felt an awful lot like listening to some hack do his scales.