On Writing – The Value of Slow

American culture doesn’t teach us to slow down. Our training from an early age is to hurry, go faster, the need for speed. The goal is quick advancement in our careers, to multi-task so we get as much done as possible. The early bird gets the worm, live fast, die young. The list goes on and on.

That mindset has been a constant pressure for me, despite the fact that I am not built that way. It took years for me to realize that I need to take the time to consider before I decide. My snap judgments are not always wrong.  But they are wrong more often than the decisions considered with care. I should also note I am more than capable of over-thinking an issue. The track record for those decisions is even worse!

It’s strange that the importance of slowing down was a lesson learned during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). An event that requires you to hit a certain pace sounds like the opposite of our topic here.  NaNoWriMo led me to a better understanding of myself as a writer. One of those realizations was my desire to get the writing “out of the way”.

I love stories. I love telling stories. The process of writing those stories is frustrating. Like most writers I’ve spoken with, my brain works 100x faster than my hands can write or type. The story that is so clear in my head is a struggle to reduce to the written word on a page. Worse yet, once I’ve “told” the complete story in my head, I have this intense urge to race on to the next story. The result has been dozens of unfinished stories and immense frustration. If I could only write faster!

Nope.

Turns out the answer was the exact opposite. I needed to slow down. Other story ideas  crowd my brain, demanding attention and distracting me from my WIP. So I make the best notes I can (need to include as many details as I can, otherwise they become one of the Lost Ones), and focus back on what I’m doing. By slowing down I spend more time considering how I’m telling this story.  I am more open to an unexpected turn in the story. Slowing down allows me to spend more of my energy on the craft of writing, rather than just the work of it. Working slower means I catch more mistakes in the editing process. Editing used to make me crazy. I’ve written the story, so why aren’t I done? It’s a common plaint of beginning writers. In slowing down, I’ve discovered a new joy in the polishing process. Finding places where less is more and other places where I can expand the story.

In slowing down, I’ve written more in the past five years than in the ten years before. The quality of what I’ve written has increased too. In the past, there were times I struggled to reach simple word count goals. In my headlong rush to get to the end I would skim past all the ideas in a concept. Much like when we slow down on a walk or a ride, now there are all kinds of details missed before and explored now. Today my problem is more often cutting ideas and reduce my output to the count desired.  My work is deeper, more nuanced and deft.  They are better stories created by a better storyteller.

What’s the speed that works for you? Do you write in a headlong rush, then slow to polish? Are you a slow/slow or fast/fast? Have you ever considered the question? I’d love to hear your experience of writing. I invite you to jump into the comments and share.