May Myth Buster 1: “I am a slow writer”

Welcome to May everyone! For some of you, spring has finally arrived and, with it, your desire to write. Same, friend. Same. Before we wiggle our fingers over the keyboard or flex our mouths for voice dictation, I’d like to dispel some myths about writing. Since this is a heavy topic, I will spend all of May’s newsletters on debunking myths about writing. Keep reading! If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do so. And, pssst, tell a friend.

“I am a slow writer.”

I have heard this phrase more times than I care to remember. Usually, people say this to me in the midst of recounting a story about the myriad aspects of their life that keep them from producing. The sentence becomes the proverbial straw on an overloaded camel. Sometimes, people state this in a frenzy of comparison. The sentence arrives after some version of “I’m not like so-and-so.” Folks also understand their identities as writers in this fashion, remarking on their speed as a way to avoid writing each day or as a way to advocate for the binge-and-bust writing method of looking for several uninterrupted time blocks.

While I can understand the reasons why people arrive at this conclusion, I posit that the logic is faulty. Let’s break this down.

I am While I do not want to get too philosophical on you, but this subject verb combination tends to put us in the territory of thinking about – at least in English – a permanent characteristic. Unless you’re a dreamgirl and you think, “I am changing.” For the purposes of this newsletter, you’re right. I digress. In Spanish, there are two verbs for “to be”: ser, which is for permanent characteristics and estar for mutable or changing characteristics. Often in the sentence, “I am a slow writer,” people are thinking along the lines of ser, when estar is more appropriate. That is, however jauntily or beautifully or insert-other-adverb-here one writes is a function of environmental, emotional, financial, and social factors. It helps to think of speed in the same way. It can change. What’s more, you can be the catalyst.

Slow. This is a moment when parts of speech can be exceedingly helpful. In the sentence above, people use “slow” as an adverb, meaning “to go at a slow pace.” It would be more productive to use “slow” as an adjective, where its synonyms are ‘unhurried,’ ‘leisurely,’ ‘deliberate,’ ‘steady,’ and ‘measured.’ As with any group of synonyms, each word has a different valence. Those are worth consideration as well. Leisurely connotes enjoyment. Steady connotes consistency. Rather than the adverb ‘slow,’ which seems to encourage self-flagellation, the adjective ‘slow’ reinforces the positive and necessary attributes of a consistent and pleasurable writing practice.

Writer. What a charged up little noun! I think of this word in the way, say Judith Butler, thinks of gender. Go with me for a minute. Roughly, Butler argues that our genders are not just who we imagine ourselves to be, but we perform them. That is, one can understand themselves as a girl but that person is also girled by others and by their own behaviors. When that person refuses to be girled, they may face social, emotional, and sometimes lethal consequences. As a writer, you too perform. Each day, you do the acts associated with writing: reading, writing, thinking, revising, submitting, receiving acceptances, receiving rejections. All of that is part of the process.

Let us put it all together with a new and revised understanding.

“I am a slow writer” is not a condemnation. It is an assertion that you are doing the work of writing. You show up often to your work. You work consistently with purpose. You can help create the environment in which you can thrive as a writer.

There is another, more overarching reason, why I advocate shifting the meaning here. Thinking of oneself in recriminating terms as a so-called slow writer puts someone in a metaphorical race between themselves (the tortoise) and an imagined hare. Quite frankly, the tortoise always wins. Slow. Steady. Plodding along. Step by step. Sometimes arduous. Sometimes easy. Sometimes with a cheer squad. Sometimes without.

Be a hero in a half shell. Turtle Power.