The Virtue of Slow Writers

 From The Millions:

As a writer at work on a book that’s taken far longer than expected—a story collection begun in 2008 now a novel in-progress—I’m interested in how, in a world that values speed, the slow writer learns to tolerate the uncertainty that comes with the long project. Is it possible to tune out the noise of doubt and the proverbial ticking clock when writing goes into overtime? Having lost count of my revisions, and in need of advice, I went looking for other slow writers and discovered that more often than not, a book’s gestation takes place over years, frequently decades. I found too that the slow writer embraces the protracted and unpredictable timeline, seeing it not as fraught or frustrating but an opportunity for openness and discovery. As J.R.R Tolkien said to W. H. Auden, on the 12 years he spent writing Lord of the Rings, “I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me.” (Read more.)