Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Entmoot

I take a long time to write. Well I guess I take a long to do everything. I once told my ten year old brother who was flabbergasted that I was driving slow that one of the key points in understanding me was that I am ‘NOT IN A HURRY’. Ever. I’m like an Ent. I never do anything unless it is worth taking a long time to do. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes it is not.

The manuscript I am working on now I have been working on for four years. Only the last two have I been serious about it but still, that is a very long time. I look on those who whip out a first draft in a matter of weeks or even months with a certain pang of envy. How do they do it? I start feeling accomplished if I can crank out a scene a day. Not two or three chapters.

I’ve experimented with trying to speed my work along, telling myself that I wasn’t taking it seriously enough or I was being lazy. It didn’t work. I would start writing and change my mind on what the scene was about half way through. I would write a chapter and realize after I’d already printed it that, that was not at all how it actually happens. I know I can always go back and change things after I’ve completed a draft but how can I build on a story if I haven’t got the beginning right? It didn’t work for me. I need to let each scene breathe a little before moving on. The story has to have time to fester inside my brain before it can come out right.

I write slow. Does that mean my first drafts have less flaws in them than those who write fast? Maybe. I don’t think so. I still see plenty of revisions that need to be made and the second draft isn’t particularly fast either. I see days and days ahead of me, letting my story sink into the cracks in my head as I get to know every corner of it. It will be a long time before it is ready.

Oh well. I am not in a hurry.

3 comments:

  1. And good for you for not being in a hurry. I am just, frankly, impatient. I want to know how the story goes and I want to know like, yesterday, so I write fast.

    But there's a downside-- it consumes me. I can't do much of anything else til it's done. I see we envy each other-- I wish I had the patience to write slowly!

    I think your stuff comes out better the first time for the patience, Taryn. You have time to mull and choose words carefully, and it shows in your writing. I have to do several passes of revisions to catch all my awkward sentences and plot holes.

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  2. I think it's just one of those things that has bad and good on both sides --though I might consider being consumed one of the perks myself.

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  3. The best authors write for themselves first. Go at the pace that feels right for you. For some writing fast is like speed reading -- you lose the essence of what makes the act meaningful.

    Have a productive week, Roland

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