Tortoises. Or: Writing in Real Time

Did I see that your book is coming out?

Lately, people have been asking. The answer’s the same as before: Yes, I have a publisher. No, I don’t have a pub date. None of it’s news—it’s just that I’m getting better at talking about it.

The book isn’t finished. The book is in process.

I write a story slowly. Or a poem. Even this post about being slow will take me far too long. But you know what takes a really long time to write? A novel. At least a novel of mine. I’ve been at this one for about seven years. Yes, I said, seven.

Now, granted there were stops and starts. And there were years I had other major commitments (some of which nearly torpedoed my writing, and me along with it). Then there were a few detours and wrong turns in the plot, as it was evolving. But mostly what has taken me so long has just been the writing itself. No, I don’t mean I’ve been procrastinating. I mean I have been writing my way forward, inch by inch. And often lamenting how some people have published three books in the time it’s taking me to write one.

“You’re a tortoise,” is what my husband says. “And you know how that story ends.”

He is a hare.

A hare that starts off at a pace that may not be sustainable, or is drawn toward some roadside attraction or other offering—some wonderful, like a sudden offer to write a tv script, some not so. Like the constant pings of incoming emails.

“Do you write every day?” people ask him.

“No,” he says, “but my wife does.” And he tells them that my first draft is equal to his eleventh.

Then their eyes start to glaze over. “And what has she published, again?”

Writing slowly—or at least publishing less frequently—has a lot of drawbacks. There are fewer advances. Fewer pub days. Fewer reviews and opportunities to be noticed. Which isn’t merely a question of vanity, but livelihood. Being noticed is what helps writers secure all the other gigs that sustain us financially: teaching, speaking, shorter pieces of writing for newspapers and magazines.

When asked, writing slowly is not what I recommend. I tell student writers that they should try to write quickly and write freely. It allows for more mistakes, and more mistakes mean more opportunities to learn from them. “Writing faster is better,” I tell them. “Write fast, if you can.”

The thing is, I can’t.

I’ve been trying to write faster for years, with no real results. And never have I felt as bad about it, as while I’ve been writing this novel.

Because I could work and work and work in my office, but the moment I went out in public as a writer, I felt fraudulent. Speaking, interviewing, teaching…all of it seemed to require apology. As if I were taking up space that other, real writers should get to occupy.

So, I drew back. I let my website languish. I didn’t show up for bookish conversations. Didn’t vie for assignments—even ones I would have liked.

“I’m a hermit,” I told people. “A novel hermit.”

Guess what happened?

Nothing! It didn’t make the writing one bit faster.

But people have an idea of the ideal artist with his ideal method and his ideal result. And—Ugh! I hate that shit! So what was I doing upholding it? As a reader, there are a lot of reasons I might fall in love with a book. And not one of them is that it arrived on some kind of predictable schedule.

So I decided to stop. Stop cringing, stop worrying, stop apologizing. I might not ever change how quickly I write, but at least I can change how I feel and how I talk about it.

On The Secret Library, mystery writer Tana French said that despite the industry standard of a novel a year, she simply can’t write so quickly. (Fun fact: sometimes she doesn’t even know who the killer is until she’s completed a whole draft.)

And what about Donna Tartt? A new Donna Tartt novel is an event, because they take her ten years to complete. Apparently, when she tries to write faster, it isn’t just the result she finds dissatisfying, but the process. And yes, there are downsides to taking this time. Tartt—who started publishing relatively early—figures she might only write five novels in her lifetime.

OK, I’m not keen to dwell on that math.

Here’s an equation that makes sense to me: Wishing that I could write faster and justifying the time it’s taking to write this novel, was taking a shit-tonne of energy. Now, I spend that energy on better things. Like other writing projects. And coaching other artists.

Yes, the novel is coming. No, it’s not here yet. But I am.