re: slow writer

["diotima" <diotima -at- myway -dot- com>]

all,



thanks for the responses on my slow writer post. one of the things that struck me was the diversity of opinion, ranging from suggestions that i see a shrink and a diagnosis of me as melancholic to pronouncing me normal and/or without problem. (i'm not making light of anyone's opinion, but just enjoying the extremes with some levity.) my own feeling is that each of these opinions probably contains elements of truth. (i'm sure someone by now has said that having some neuroses is precisely what makes one so boringly normal.)



when i started seeing the responses, i started to realize that my description of my writing process was a bit too generalized and simplistic, and therefore maybe a bit misleading. so i will problematize it briefly. for one thing, i don't *always* write that way. and for another thing, there's surely some gradations along a continuum such that sometimes i might write like that to an extreme and other times only mildly. furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, i had lumped all of the different kinds of writing i do into that one portrayal, and not all of them fit so well. there are many different types of documents i write as a technical writer, but i'm talking even more broadly.



when i think about it, i realize there are three main types of writing i do : technical writing, academic writing, and epistolary writing (which is to say, email). slowness is an element in each, but manifests differently in each. for instance, the portrayal of my writing process that i gave--though it also describes my technical writing at various times and in varying degrees--probably best describes my academic writing. procrastination is an aspect of my academic writing, but never do i procrastinate in my professional tech writing. and praise, though it comes only occasionally in my professional tech writing, comes more frequently in my academic writing.



lisa asked if anyone else has ever called me a slow writer, which is a great question. i have to say, no. that probably serves as a good reality check, though to a certain extent i think it also points to how adept i am at hiding and compensating for my slowness.



i think it was bruce who mentioned mixing writing and editing. bingo. that is definitely a huge part of it. i do edit while i write, and that does slow me down, but on the other hand, boy is my editing process a cinch ! even spell check generally comes up empty when i let it challenge me at the very end. it seems to me that, un/fortunately, i cannot resist the urge to edit while i'm writing. maybe sometimes in some contexts i can relax it just a bit, but for the most part i can't. 



for mike: english is my first language. i speak french and spanish, though not fluently. while my slowness was there before i took up other languages, the extra languages in my head can get a little distracting sometimes. but i don't think that it has a measurable effect on writing speed. (although i don't think i ever misspelled an english word in my life until i took up french.)



i quite liked this: "the work will get done. some days you will work fast, some days slow, but the work will get done." that works for me.



overall, from everyone's responses, i suppose that a certain degree of slowness, particularly in the beginning, is normal and to be expected. some will tend to write quickly and others slowly. i seem to be especially slow in the planning and early writing stages, but i tend to make up for that in the end. at any rate, i've never been let go because of my writing speed, so i guess it can't be that bad.



with peter sellers in the media recently and now on my brain, i'm thinking of the phrase: "how i stopped worrying and learned to love my writing process." i think probably the part of my writing process that i like best is the finishing up.



-diotima









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