Time Management Tuesday: Week Two Of Slow Writing

So here we are with Week 2 of my November Time Management Tuesday slow writing arc in which I, once again, ask, Can we be more productive by slowing down?

What is Slow Writing?

Well, there's a question or you.

First off, slow writing can refer to a method of teaching writing to children. I don't teach writing, so I'm not going to comment on this, other than to say this is not what we're talking about.

When looking for slow writing information on-line, you will come across material on how slow writers can speed up. We're not interested in that. 

What we're talking about here is related--somehow--to other slow movements, particularly slow work.

My Favorite Recent Reading on Slow Writing

The best piece I found on slow writing this month comes from Nicole Gulotta's The Art of Slow Writing: Pacing Yourself in the Digital Age. Gulotta describes slow writing as not so much about reducing your speed as it is about reducing your scope. It's a lifestyle. You mindfully integrate your writing life into your personal life, paying attention to how you can work during different stages of your life. I'm probably experiencing confirmation bias, since what she's talking about is very similar to the situational time management I've been writing about here for more than ten years.

Gulotta also mentions Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, which I did an arc on a couple of years ago, connecting his thoughts to writing.

I definitely have a specific writing lifestyle these days, and it probably does relate very much to slow writing. But before I get into that, next week I'm going to cover some slow writing conflicts.

What I Just Did There Was, I Believe, An Example Of Slow Writing And How It Can Benefit Readers

In Nicole Gullotta's piece on slow writing, she talks about it involving life overall, but not specific kinds of writing. 

I'm going to suggest that a specific way of practicing slow writing is to write and present a larger concept piece in smaller segments. By which I mean we don't just break writing something into smaller tasks, then put it altogether and present it, as in a novel or a dissertation. I mean we break something into smaller, complete types of writing that make sense of one aspect of an overall subject and present/publish them.

So today, I am only writing about what Nicole Gulotta has to say in The Art of Slow Writing instead of writing this much and then going on with something that's going to be quite contradictory. I also want to write about privilege in relation to slow writing. I might go on to the connection between blogging and slow writing. Whatever I do, I'll do in separate pieces of writing. 

This slows down the process for me. It makes it less of an ordeal to write, but also makes it possible for me to be much clearer and more thoughtful about everything I write on this subject. I'm not racing to get the equivalent of a magazine cover story written and published today.

But it will also slow down the reading experience, which I think is going to be a good thing, too. Readers will be handling one concept at a time, instead of multiple ones.

Slow writing may have something for everyone.