When Slow Is Good

Photo by munish sawant on Unsplash

I caught my husband’s cold a few days ago. It made me very tired. Not having my regular level of energy is always a shock to me. I also get grouchy and pessimistic when I’m sick.

Since I know that about myself, I try not to let those negative thoughts do much besides make themselves known and then pass on by.

When I’m sick, my thinking also slows down by at least 50%. I know this too, so I try hard to readjust my expectations. Any progress is some progress.

With my dog novel revision, I’ve been focusing on the scenes with my dog character Rebel. I’ve renamed her Shadow. She’s mostly black and she stuck close to her boy, like his shadow, but she’s also become a shadow of herself.

Now that I know her back story much better and what her arc should be, I’ve started revising scenes where she appears. I’ve been rewriting the opening scenes to include more information about her and about the world where the story begins—the canine afterlife.

I’m being methodical and looking for everywhere her name is mentioned. Because my thinking has been slow the last few days thanks to the cold, the work has been slow too.

I sit and think through the changes I need to incorporate about the world, about Shadow, about the action—all things I discovered through character interviews.

It’s almost painfully slow. I’m usually pretty quick to make decisions.

But slow can be good.

Because I’ve been working so slowly, I noticed that I have quite a few minor dog characters with one or two lines and then they’re never heard from again. When I drafted this story years ago, I thought I needed them.

But now, moving slowly and strategically through the story to revise Shadow scenes, I’ve discovered that a number of these walk-on characters can either be cut altogether, or I can give their dialogue to Shadow instead.

I suspect that’s common. Last year when I talked to author Sally J. Pla about her novel, Stanley Will Probably Be Fine, she mentioned that she originally gave Stanley several siblings. In the published novel, he has one older brother.

Writing a novel is such a complex endeavor. There are so many pieces that need to fit neatly together, and they don’t all do that during the white-hot creative streak of a first draft.

Uma Krishnaswami, one of my wise advisors at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, once told me that it’s nearly impossible to wear both the writer’s hat and the editor’s hat at the same time.

Another way to think of that is multi-tasking. I had a boss once who thought she was an excellent multi-tasker and that multi-tasking, in general, is a feat we should all aspire to. I quietly disagreed. The science shows that trying to do two or three things at once constantly divides your attention and makes you less efficient, not more.

So I’ll continue to plug away on my revision, focusing for the time being on Shadow, and then I’ll figure out what needs revised next.

How’s your work coming?