On the Enjoyment of Slow Work
And the casting of seeds
I was once in a phase where I told everyone that if they were serious about writing they should write 1,000 words a day. This would help the writer maintain the thread of the story and move consistently through the entire first draft. This also meant that most books could be written in three or four months of weekday writing sessions.
There is nothing wrong with writing 1,000 words a day. It helped me, for a time. A daily word count, a daily writing goal, can be invaluable, especially in the beginning.
But this was back when I thought there was probably a right and a wrong way of doing most things, especially writing books.
I also mostly thought we could all do a little better than what we were currently doing, perhaps work a little harder, be a little more dedicated.
(I blame this on my Anabaptist heritage, perhaps unfairly.)
I now think that, generally speaking, we are all doing the best we can with the situations we’ve been given. Maybe someday I’ll look back on that sentiment and laugh, too. Who knows.
Van Gogh, during his lifetime, made more than 30 drawings and paintings that depicted sowers, including the one shared at the top of this post. Clearly there was something about the action of sowing that called out to him. This is one of my favorites: the random tree in the foreground, the oversized yellow sun which I imagine is setting though perhaps it could be rising, quite literally sainting the shadowy form of the sower, who is going about his business, either at dusk or dawn, a steady, consistent sowing.
What was Van Gogh if not a sower of seeds? Painting after painting, poverty after poverty, illness after illness. A life of persevering in the work, of dedication, and of living in the unknown. Unable to sell a painting or receive any recognition for what he was doing. As his life passed, his hopes faded like the sun setting behind the sower.
I can easily imagine being that sower in his painting, walking steadily through the fading field, the cool dusk, a seed bag bumping my hip as I go, taking one handful of seeds after another and casting them into the field behind me, just walking and casting. Barefoot, perhaps, the dirt crumbling in between my toes.
Walking and casting.
Walking and casting.
I’m working on a novel. I’ve talked about this one before, how I started writing it about eighteen months ago, how after six months I read the first 30,000 words to some trusted writer friends, how their feedback helped me face the fact I had been avoiding, that this story was in the wrong voice, that it could be better, that it all needed to be scrapped and taken up again, if I even wanted to.
Did I want to?
So I started again, from scratch.
This novel has come into being in a very different way than my last six or seven novels, in that it’s come in fits and starts. Mostly because I’m so busy with the co-writing work that I do, the non-novel-writing, and that’s what pays the bills around here. My time for personal, fiction writing is limited.
So, I’ve written 1,500 words some days, but then I’ll go a week without writing. Then 1,000 words three days in a row. Then nothing for a week or two. Then 500 words on a Saturday night.
What’s also different for me with this book, though, is that I’m consistently in the story . . . in my mind. I rarely stop thinking about the characters, the father-son relationship. The love this father has for his child is something I’ve been thinking about a lot as our oldest two kids are now young adults living their own lives, and I’ve allowed those emotions and questions and sadness and joy to enter the manuscript.
Writing this book hasn’t been 1,000 words every day. It’s been more of a marinating experience, a slow soak, a mulling of ideas until the time comes when I simply have to write something, or revise a scene, or sketch out an idea. Then I write.
Writing is like casting seeds.
Just walking and casting.
Walking and casting.
Can we content ourselves in the slow work of casting these words out into the world, walking the long rows ahead of us, not looking back?
My work-in-progress is at 60,000 words. It has been for a few weeks now, but that’s okay. I’ll ease back into it tonight, or tomorrow morning, the characters finding their way. The father in the story is looking for his son, the son in the story is looking for himself, wondering if his time has come. The father makes poor choices, mostly out of love, sometimes out of fear. It’s a familiar story, at least familiar to me.
How will we raise these young people, no longer small children?
By releasing them, one of the hardest things that parenting asks of us.
Releasing them, perhaps, like seeds.
Some really good writing I came across recently that you should check out if you have the time (click the links to keep reading):
“And then she said it all afternoon, slowly turning it into a joke, then a brag, then a cry for help, then an accusation, then a joke again. I think about the way I have used my own mother’s name, the way we all use our mother’s names, how flexible and functional and special of a word it is to offspring the world over, how my mother’s special word shoots out from the palms of my hands, how it sinks heavy in my mouth, how it warms the back of my shoulders, how I’ve used my mother’s special word like a password to unlock the world . . .”
“We both know the truth not spoken between us. In ten years, Wayne’s farm—a farm that’s been in his hands for decades—will be a memory. Trampolines will dot the backyards of a subdivision, or maybe morning joggers will run a paved walking path at a municipal park. Maybe golfers will celebrate a birdy on the tenth hole. Whatever happens, there’ll be no marker memorializing Wayne or the years he nurtured this bit of the Ozarks.”
“We hadn't heard the term “third place” yet, but we were motivated by this dream of a beautiful and inviting place for our community, somewhere for the school kids to get lunch and hang out after classes, before practice; somewhere to meet a friend for coffee; somewhere to get lunch after church. We envisioned all the rememberers, the old-timers who missed their coffee and homemade biscuits and gravy at the Bravo Bakery or the Chalet Restaurant.”
“After my priestly duties, I barreled down the steps, grabbed my computer, and planted myself on the couch, ready to pound out the words I needed to get through and tick off the next item on my list.
Then I heard Mia’s laugh.
It came through our winter-tight windows, and, geez Louise, did I ever need to hear it.”
Have you read or written anything lately that you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments!
I’ve followed and admired your writing for probably a decade, as far back as your move to the basement. But it has never been so good as it has of late. I quit writing about 8 years ago… not sure why. Words just fizzled out although the observing never stopped. Somewhere around then I picked up a paintbrush instead. Life has taken some strange twists and turns since then. Some deep joys. Some unbelievable sadness. I can only hope I’m sowing seeds. The thing about seeds is we may or may not see the harvest, right? But still we sow. And knowing that—as you point out—gives me hope.
I also once measured my life in 1,000 words, and then realized how burned out I had become (Anabaptist heritage here, too, ha). My writing has slowed considerably these last few years, but I enjoy it—and my children, my husband, my life—so much more. I really hope never to fall beneath an endless deadline again.