Word count goals. NaNoWriMo. Writing sprints. Everywhere you turn, writers are told to ignore their inner editor, shut the thesaurus, tune out the world, and write as much as possible in the shortest amount of time.
As Truman Capote once said of Jack Kerouac: “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”
While there are benefits to working quickly to get your thoughts down or to rough out a first draft, there are also times you should chill TF out, take your time, enjoy your process, and let your voice reveal what you have to say. In an essay for Lit Hub, Melissa Matthewson extolls these virtues of writing slowly.
“How can we, as writers, contest the urge to produce at real or imagined external timelines?” Matthewson asks. Comparing creativity to the slow growth of lichen, she says we should “challenge all the ways we are influenced to rush our composition, to push against capitalism’s engine insisting a kind of efficient production of creative works.”
While writing slowly may suggest sloth, indifference, or lack of intelligence, Matthewson finds the more nuanced definitions more applicable to the creative process: deliberate, sensual, done with care. A fire slowly building in a hearth.
“All things good, slow means listening,” Matthewson says. “To allow the inner self to hear what ideas may generate from words placed on a page.” Slowness may allow you to make new connections, remember a relevant dream or conversation, observe something from a different angle. To overcome that nagging voice telling you to write faster, Matthewson recommends “contemplation, deliberate reflection, slow thought, which results in intricate language.” Adopting a more measured pace can also help you live – and create – in the present, with a greater degree of mindfulness.
