I read about how writers can whip out pages at a time, when it takes me days to craft a single scene. I write a paragraph, and then I go back and tighten up that paragraph and and a few sentences in another.

Before long 500 good words are written and I'm exhausted.

I'm not lazy; I'm just slow. Painfully slow. The only writing I can pen with any type of speed are these posts.

Is anyone else terribly slow? Are there authors you respect that are slow? OSC has written over fifty books. Now not all books are good books, but there is something to be said for that sort of speed and volume of work.

Now I know that a lot of bad authors write quickly, but what about the good authors? Do they write as slowly as I do? Are they operating in an "I" formation getting 3 yards and a pile of dust.

It's not that I don't have direction, or don't research, it's just that I'm slow. I need to know that I'm not alone.

I'm consistent, just consistently slow.

But how long have you been writing? It's a matter of experience also.

A friend of mine wanted to start writing, but did the same as you say now. He wrote a paragraph and looked it again and again, so he couldn't move on. The trick is to write NOW what you have to write and edit later. Write down you're story/chapter/scene first, and enjoy it. Then make it perfect (as perfect as anything in this world can be). As you become more experienced (I take it you're new), you'll need less and less editing, b/c your writing would become better as time passes.

Get it down first, then edit. My personal style: I hate leaving anything hanging, so I write until I have finished a scene or a chapter. A solid chapter of about 5,000 words will take me about 3 hours of writing. Not editing, mind you, just writing. Once I've finished the chapter I will come back through and re-read, catching errors, fleshing out stuff, smacking my head saying "What was I thinking?!", etc. Once I'm satisfied with the preliminary edit, I'm done... and usually done for the day.

The next time I tackle writing (which is usually the next day), I always come back through my newly edited chapter one more time. Not only does this help me catch things I missed in the heat of writing, but it helps get my juices flowing for the next chapter.

I recommend Stephen King's "On Writing." It is an excellent book that may help. If you're not interested in King's biography, just skip to the last half.

Hope that helps! Good luck.

But many other good writers do it the way Bardos and Siligurl have advised.

The problem is that what works for one writer may not work for another. Even for the same writer, what works with one story may not work with another story.

People can tell you to let yourself write and wait until later to edit, but that's easier said than done.

They encourage that because they know that all across the land there are file cabinets full of beautifully executed and edited first paragraphs or first chapters that will never be read by more than a very few.

I suspect that what you are doing, Tanglier, and other writers like you, is similar to what a poet does when writing a poem.

Because poems are so relatively short and must be so precise, it may be best to write them with an "editor on the shoulder." Whether this is a good approach for prose is another question.

However, I'm not going to urge you to try to be a faster writer, nor am I going to tell you to allow yourself to write badly so you can get something down on paper. I give that kind of advice to people who don't want to be slow writers.

I don't think you're asking for that kind of advice. I hear you asking for permission to write slowly.

If you ever decide you want to write faster, then we can advise you on things to try.

In the meantime, you should write the way that works best for you. Prolificity is not the goal of writing. It's a good goal to have if you want to make a living at it, but it isn't the only or even the main goal.

You are not alone. Many writers write slowly and carefully. We may not hear about them because they're not as sensational as the prolific ones. But they're out there.

There is no One Right Way to write.

It's tough, but if you keep at it, you do get somewhere eventually.

I, personally, as far as my fiction is concerned, am of the school of 'edit as you write'. I sometimes wish I could write more quickly, and I have lately been experimenting with not-quite-stream-of-consciousness writing, in an effort to strike a better balance of speed and quality. However, I still find that the fastest good things for me are monologues, because if I can get inside the head of the character, I can just let them do the talking.

My advice, for what it's worth, is to try and develop some fast-writing exercises. If you're like me, you have a file folder/cabinet full of scraps of paper with ideas scribbled on them. If so, the next time a brilliant concept occurs to you, jot it down in a sentence or two if you have to, but then sit down right away and just write until you have to stop. Don't worry about technical points, or about pesky little things like continuity. Don't worry if you flatly contradict yourself sentence after sentence. There's a value in all this.

Hopefully, the result will be that you slowly become more comfortable with a more direct approach to writing, and that your pace will begin to increase as you tackle your main writing. Plus, these exercises have the added benefit that they can sometimes produce some fascinating little vignettes/scenes which can take on a life of their own later on.

Just let me say one more little thing too. Time can also come into play through peer review and your own growing acquaintance with your piece. Most of my recent writing has been songs. I have trouble really getting to know them until they've been performed a bunch of times. And even then, I go back and listen to the show recordings. I find it strange to listen to the CD, which we recorded at the end of 1999, because teh songs have really evolved since then, through repeated performance. So in writing material for the second, I'm really trying hard to give myself the opportunity to get to know the songs, through my own experience and through the reaction of others...

There is hardly a wasted metaphor. The power of Martin's prose reminds me of OSC's Hart Hope, but Martin seems to have a clearer vision and more control of his images.

A Storm of Swords left me breathless, but I can't imagine that that book was written easily or at all sloppily.

I want to capture that sort of power and intent with every phase, but I fear I don't have Martin's well of metaphors to drink from. I spend time spicing up my own prose, making sure that the story telling is tight, and that clarity not only abounds, the quality is shamelessly exposing itself in everyone of my sentences. Then to do all of and still make sure that I'm am drawing all of the attention to the color of the characters as opposed to myself as the writer is especially difficult. And not something I can do quickly.

For me, rhetorical innovation + ideological clarity + subtle plotting + telling characterizations = Time. I just needed to know that it's okay to write like the turtle.

btw, it's especially frustrating knowing the if I finish before the sun burns out, I'm going to cut scenes or whole chapters in the name of efficient storytelling.

I have 43 chapters meticulously outlined, volumes of notes on world-building and character histories, and now that I'm actually writing. I take two steps forward and one step back to make sure everything is developing exactly like the pace it should.

But with this labor intensive approach, by the time I make sure that the plot is moving briskly, the my prose is artful, and above all, the character motivations are clear, it's already been entirely too long.

Thank you for the permission to write like the turtle. I figure as long as I'm consistent, even at a turtles pace, I should be finished before Social Security kicks in, even if I'm 24.

I've heard that Connie Willis is also a slow person. She works on 8 or 9 stories at a time. Planning and writing meticulously and slowly.

But I know there that the bulk of them can just write at a terrifically impressive pace.

TTFN & lol

As for me, I'm slow, and quite frankly not in a hurry. I hand write all of my notes, fragments, and first drafts. I can't create as well at the pc, because it's way to easy to edit and delete, and thus to have a blank screen at the end of the day. At least with hand writing my work, I can edit, scribble out, block off and arrow pieces together, and even go back and reuse or move things I've scribbled out previously. Often what I find myself doing, as I (sometimes painstakingly) write a scene (as you said, Tanglier, 500 words worth of exhaustive work) what's happening is it's actually evolving as I write it, so I see the demon stick his arm in the fire, then realize it's not shaking, and then see the sweat drip off it, then see the sweat create little tonguelets of fire that lick at his thick red skin. Well, unless I simply see it all at once, which does occassionally happen, I have to go back and rework it to get all the detail I want in a coherent fashion.

So, carry on, my good, slow-writing, friend. You are not alone.

HOW TO WRITE
1) Put it all down on paper.
2) THEN rework it.

That way, you don't just look at individual sentences and paragraphs, but on the story and the work as a whole. Which is a GOOD thing. Not only do you get to look back and notice that you've missed things in the begining and should add them, but also you know how every sentence and every paragraph and every chapter fits into the whole story.

I mean, honestly: When you read, you don't read sentence by sentence. You read paragraph by paragraph. The paragraph is the basic unit of writing, not the sentence. So, to be quite honest, you don't need to worry about things on such a minute level. [that's not to say you can't; the first rule of writing is that you're allowed to do ANYTHING if you can get away with it.]

Partially this is writing style. I mean, I can't imagine going over things sentence by sentence; sometimes I can't even bring myself to revise. Of course, the way you write, you don't need to; revising is part and parcel of the writing process. So I don't know what to say, for it's not my place or anyone else's to criticize anyone's style. But it seems to me that most people do it differently, that they write first and revise later. It also seems to me that doing that is probably faster.

...And if I might be allowed to speculate. All of this is completely unfounded and I can't guarantee its accuracy at all. However, I trust my instincts, and this is what they tell me:

I think, partially, you write the way you do because you're scared that your writing is bad. You put down a sentence and you think, 'Oh, my God, this is such complete and utter crap, I'd better fix it before someone sees it,' and it goes from there. I'm not sure how you would cure yourself of that impulse, but I think that if you did, you'd be able to write, if not better, then at least more quickly.

Assuming, of course, that you even feel that way. Feel free to yell at me if I'm completely off the wall here.

He was reworking those first pages until they were in his mind perfect. Guess where it got him? He has never finished anything.

I have read about published writers who write only a page a day and then re-work that page to perfection and never do a re-write or edit of the entire project. But even at a page a day, you will have 365 pages. With one-inch margins and 12pt Times New Roman---that's about 90,000 words or a book a year.

So that works as well.

As others have said here---basically--JUST DO IT! What ever works for you, do it, and plow on until you have the story down. It doesn't even really matter if you finish anything----unless you want to share in the agony of finding agent or editor.

writing poetry can be hard at times, it doesn't have to rhyme, but it does have to fit. sometimes I can write half a poem staight, other times it takes a week of gradually putting the words down.

GZ

I've been trying to get more words written in a day because I need that feeling of making progress. (I'm a bit older than you - and lefthanded to boot. My personal sun will go out in a smaller time.) It's working sort of. I am writing more words, but sometimes I'm taking massive detours where I lose track of plot, character, what have you.

There's no easy answer.

By the Way, Annie Lamott's Bird by Bird talks about this issue in a humourous way. She is a firm believer in the "crappy" first draft.