“In our rush-rush world, if we allow ourselves to slow down our lives and
our writing process, we’ll discover that we’ll connect — or reconnect — with our most profound work.” Louise DeSalvo, The Art of Slow Writing
Slow cooking and slow writing: While the ingredients are different, the idea behind them is the same: to create something savory and soul-satisfying by taking the time to let flavors or words ripen and reveal themselves. As Louise DeSalvo once said so well, the real goal is to “become our truest, deepest, most authentic writing selves.”
All this takes time, intention, invention, revision.
Louise DeSalvo was an award-winning teacher and the author of 17 books, among them, Writing as a Way of Healing. She’s pursued a lifelong fascination with the writing process. In her search for the wellsprings of creativity, she’s studied the early and later drafts of well-known authors, and read their journals, interviews, and letters.
She shares many of her findings in The Art of Slow Writing: Reflections on Time, Craft, and Creativity. While writing process varies from writer to writer, I find it inspiring to learn that Hemingway rewrote The Old Man and the Sea 19 times and that John Steinbeck spent many years reflecting before he penned The Grape of Wrath.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in crafting my children’s novel, it’s that building a world takes time. With every revision, my characters have deepened and my story arc has strengthened. I’ve worked on it at a slow, steady pace. The gift of time is a gift I’m giving myself — and my story. Both of us deserve it, because we’ve earned it — together.
As Louise says in her book, “Finding our way as writers is a daily, ever-changing process.” How true this is! We all need courage and faith in ourselves to survive the stages our work goes through as we shape it and reshape it. And we all need the strength to find a new path when our original vision seems to melt away or transform itself.
Sl-o-o-w writing. I like the way this sounds. I remember reading John Legend’s response when a studio executive worried that his album was taking too long to finish. Legend simply said, “You can’t rush creativity.” Write on!
