Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
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Thoughts on Writing #31: This Is Not A Race.

It's time for the thirty-first essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. Thirty-one essays, and I still haven't run out of things to say. All these essays are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, and are touching on just about every aspect of the art, craft, and marginal insanity that is this particular profession. Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #31: This Is Not A Race.

As always, and because it's good to explain yourself, here's our expanded thought for the day:

Measuring your output against someone else's output is a game with no winners at all. Maybe you write fast. Maybe you write slow. Maybe you're somewhere in the middle. I can write an obscene number of pages on a good day, and finish it off with a song and maybe a sonnet or two. Another friend of mine considers herself to be doing amazingly well if she finishes three pages in eight hours. Neither of us is doing anything wrong. Some of the best books ever written took years to finish; so did some of the worst. Write at your own pace, and know what that pace is.

Everyone naturally moves at their own speed. Some of us are fast, some of us are slow. Some of us are somewhere in the middle. Our quality will often be determined by our natural comfort zone. Is it something we can push out of? Is it something we should push out of? Let's talk speed, why it matters, and why yours is no better than mine. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

What Is Output?

For the sake of this essay, we're going to need a working definition of "output." So, in order to allow us all to be thinking along the same lines, we're going to say that "output" is any of the following:

* Text added to a project, either existing or new;
* Text revised or rewritten for an existing project;
* Outlines or detailed proposals written for a new project.

Basically, anything that generates text or forces you to actively review existing text is considered "output" for the purposes of today's discussion. These things take time, and how much time they take is going to vary from person to person. I'm not counting "processing edits" or "entering revisions" as part of the output process, as these are more data-entry than composition a lot of the time. If your edit-entry differs, feel free to consider that as output. Nobody's grading anybody here. In fact, that's a lot of the point.

What's Fast?

There are people who reliably cranky out short stories in an evening, novellas in a weekend, or novels in a month. This is terrifying. Stephen King says that if you can't finish a book in "the span of a season," it's probably not a book that wants to be written...and when you consider that some of his books could be used as murder weapons, this says some pretty scary things about the man's daily output. When Meg was serving as Bard of the Mists, I regularly saw her produce incredibly intricate works of structured poetry in the time it would take most people to come up with a rhyme for "cat." These are some extreme examples of speed.

What's Slow?

There are people who take ten years to finish a draft. Not to finish a book, with all its associate revisions, rewrites, edits, and agonies: the first draft. I used to take poetry classes with a girl named Crystal, who was a fantastic poet, and finished approximately one sonnet every six weeks. She was never going to lead the pack for quantity, but she was definitely at the head of the class for quality. Some people work for twenty years, dilligently, and never actually reach the end of their first manuscript. These, too, are some extreme examples of speed.

So Which Is Better?

Neither one.

If you're fast, you're going to encounter people who'll tell you that quality always suffers in the face of quantity. You're going to encounter people who will swear that your speed means you can't possibly be any good, because no one can be both fast and accurate. You're going to encounter people who call you a hack, because all true art takes time. Are these things occasionally true? Yes, they can be. Sometimes a rush job is worse than no job at all; sometimes people who move quickly miss mistakes because they're not willing to stop and review; sometimes people work at high speeds just because they don't give a crap. These things are not, however, universally true. Try not to let them hurt your feelings.

If you're slow, you're going to encounter people who won't believe that you're a "real" writer, since you're obviously just dabbling. You're going to encounter people who look at you pityingly and ask if you have writer's block, rather than believing that you enjoy moving at your own pace. You're going to encounter people who refuse to read your work, because they don't want to wait for the sequel. Are this things occasionally true? Yes, they can be. Sometimes adding two words a year to a manuscript is enough to satisfy the urge to write; sometimes people slow down because they're blocked; sometimes slow writers lose impatient readers. Again, however, these things are not universally true. Don't let other people dictate your opinion of yourself.

There will always be specific cases where speed matters. You can't write for comic books—a monthly medium with very little wiggle room for anyone who's not already Warren Ellis—if you can't maintain a reasonably high level of output. You'll probably go crazy writing for a less regular market if you're one of those people who finishes a project every other night. Be aware of the way a specific market treats delivery speeds, and go into them informed, but don't assume that just because your speed isn't what that market needs, there's something wrong with you. I'm not equipped to write exciting books about sports, and that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me. We are not universal remotes. We're not going to be tuned to every channel. And that's fine.

What If I Don't Like My Speed?

First, a disclaimer: some things don't change. If you're a naturally fast writer, you're only going to have so much luck at slowing down. Ditto the naturally slow writer trying to speed up. That's fine. We are what we are, and learning how to work within the boundaries of our own skins is part of growing as writers and as human beings.

That being said, there are ways to adjust your speed, within reason. Slow writers often find that they speed up with practice, becoming more at ease with the processes that go into assembling a good story. Fast writers often slow down on the second draft, taking their time as they navigate their way through the trickier bits of text. It'll all average out. I do recommend that you neither rush yourself nor force yourself to slow down more than you think you can handle without losing your mind. All that will do is make you crazy, and crazy writers are not, as a rule, the most fun to read. (The most fun to observe from a distance, yes, but the most fun to read, not so much.)

Is There A Point Here?

Yes. My point was in my original thought, and here it is again, just in case you missed it the first nine times:

Measuring your output against someone else's output is a game with no winners at all.

This is not a contest. It's not a race. It's not a "whip it out and measure already," because nobody will win. Maybe I write ten pages in the time it takes you to write one, or one page in the time it takes you to write ten. Since all we're measuring is pure word count, not quality or genre or effort involved, this is a false result. All you will do is upset yourself, whether you're fast or slow. We will always be calibrated to work at our own pace, and I've seen writers break themselves trying to keep up with the speed-demons, or do the same trying to be slow enough to be "thoughtful."

Write. Whatever your pace, write. Don't say "well, my book doesn't count, because Bob there finished three." Your book counts. Your words count. And the only output you should ever stack yourself against is your own.

Thank you.
Tags: advice, contemplation, writing
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  • 24 comments
I'd say part of this issue has to deal with how we are handed writing assignments in school. They have deadlines, usually within a few days or weeks. Occasionally, we will get deadlines that are months away, and while the process is designed to allow the student to write well, at their own pace, allowing for self and associate editing, the end result is a lesson in the evils of procrastination.

Most of us don't learn about writing at our own pace outside of a thesis environment, and even there, the eventual need to publish still looms. Even in professional writing, there are deadlines and submit by dates.

Problem is, some people can push out a credible story in an afternoon, while some agonize for years over what their characters need to do next.
I think you're very right. The organized school system rewards speed in very tangible ways (more time not doing homework, more freedom to play outside), while rewarding diligence in ways we're not supposed to admit matter (unless we want to be branded geeks, which, well, most of us were).

The one good thing about writing fiction is that I don't really get deadlines I don't agree to. At least not so far.
Yay! I was just thinking about these posts the other night & wonder when the next would be up :)

Great points- I've been told I should "slow it down" just to see if I can bang out a better quality first draft (not that I was bad, that I could be better) so I've been trying it, but... I'm thinking I might just go back to crappy & fast. :) First drafts are allowed to have multitudes of suckdom. Er, so long as I can fix them later!
I've always found it easier to edit than to get down that first draft, personally. (I like editing, most of the time!) The only quality concern I'd worry about is if you bang out a fast, crappy first draft and call it "perfect and done." O:>
Exactly.
Remember: as long as these don't come with deadlines, they don't join the heap of things trying to overwhelm me, and I don't freak out and stop writing them. :)

First drafts are allowed to suck as long as the core is strong enough to be repaired, absolutely. That's what second drafts are for.
Some of my best work occurs when I'm writing fast, but that's usually because I'm on deadline. When I went to college, I chose a career-path that puts that aspect of my writing style to good use, a.k.a. as a reporter. (Then I got laid off, rar. Stupid economy.)

Anyway, I guess my two cents on this one is a hearty AMEN. I wish my mother could understand that I work horribly without a deadline imposed by someone other than myself. :/ It means she doesn't get it that I haven't churned out three books since she started bugging me about writing two years ago.
Deadlines are the only things that keep me sane.
Yeah, somebody might get bummed being part of a "wordcount report" group seeing others who write 1000+ words each day when they're writing less than 300.

I guess the best thing to do is only compare yourself to yourself. 300 words is crappy for me, because I usually can do 1000 in a day, but that's just me. If your output suddenly drops look at what you're doing, but if someone else posts they got 10,000 words written today, tell them "Good for you!" and go back to your story.

Feeling bad that you only make 1/3 of what I do is as silly as me comparing my output to what the wonderwoman Seanan McGuire does in a day.

BTW, If it tried to reach your output Seanan, I'd have a full blown nervous breakdown with all the bells and whistles. :D
Exactly. Compare you to you, and you'll be amazed how much easier it gets to stay awesome.
And even wonderwoman Seanan McGuire is in awe of Stephen King's rate of output for his monstrously and notoriously thick books.

(Although, if you put everything she writes: music, poetry, blogs, comics and novels together, she just might already match that.)
Wait until I'm writing full-time. Then you'll see flames coming out of this keyboard...
I needed to see this. I really, really needed to see this. I just had a friend get herself a book published, and because of jealousy issues I won't get into here, it's sent me into a tailspin because I've been writing so much longer, and haven't even finished a project for publication.

So this essay was well-timed. Thank you.
You're very welcome.
I love love love these posts!

(Possibly because I completely and utterly agree with them.)
Yay!
Thank you! I still fall into the "I suck because I'm slow" trap, and it's one I really need to break out of.
It's hard.
I <3 all these posts, but this one has been particularly timely. Thank you.
You're very welcome.
I took a motorcycle safety course last weekend. One of my classmates was a gentleman from Texas via California, where he had raced motorcycles professionally at Laguna. (It seems that the California M/C whatzis didn't transfer up here... and besides, that sort of motorcycle folk do take refresher courses from time to time just to stay sharp.)

One of his cogent comments was, there's a difference in going fast, and rushing. He could be going 160mph, and be cool as a cucumber, laid back and smooth. Or I could be doing six or seven miles an hour coming out the driveway, and be in a big damn hurry. The former *looks* spectacular, but ain't when you're the one doing it; the lizard brain is the one doing all the hotshot stuff, while your conscious self is about 12 seconds down the track thinking about the next two curves. The latter? on two wheels, can get you dead PDQ; I don't want to think about what it does to the writing. It probably resembles a bad motorcycle crash..... and that's probably more than enough about *that* topic.


Very true.
Thank you for writing this. I once tried to 'race' a friend of mine sometime in high school, and on about day two I called it off- she could write 3 pages in 15 minutes and I was lucky if I could write half a page in that time. I'm quicker now, but still...
Yeah, it's just not good for anyone involved. Keep your own pace and you'll be much happier.