Slowing Down
Thoughts on writing by hand, the writing grind, and the iNaturalist app
Here's a novelty: I'm writing this by hand in front of a view of a lake and Austrian mountains. There's a precedent - back in the 1930s, Hermann Broch used to write from this house where I am staying, wielding his pen. My early books all started out by hand, one with a view from a caravan window toward a Scottish loch and mountains. For days after finishing that volume I couldn’t walk, or even stand, with acute pain in my calf. I took it as a symptom of the writing life, that it keeps crushing your body. That’s true in its way, but only because I didn’t know the dangers of sitting still for hours. Looking back, I know the pain was deep vein thrombosis to which I’m prone.
As I write the page is becoming an artwork, with lines crossed out and phrases squeezed in. It all looks unfinished - which is handy. Writing direct into a Word document, no sooner is a word out than it is typeset and auto corrected, co-pilot taking it on in AI mode if you let it. Computing creates an urge for a piece to be finished, almost instantly. If it already looks published, surely it's publishable? Handwritten pieces aren't like that. They're personal and evolving.
Starting an academic year with a fresh crowd of creative writing students, one or two always stood out. They had natural flair, and the beginnings of a distinctive voice. It would seem like a good start. Oddly, those generally weren’t the writers who shone at the end of the course. Thinking they had it all, perhaps, a little cocky, they didn't put in the work. They didn't absorb the teachings or leave themselves open to feedback.
Writing is a slow, risky, tough business. It takes constant effort, every piece providing new challenges.
I recall a tea-company executive, bewailing the fact that people dunked tea bags. ‘Teabags are a convenience food, ‘ he said. ‘Not instant food.’
Add water, stir, let it steep.
Like teabags, writing needs time.
My books take years to complete. While I do now write directly into a screen, even so each book acquires an accompanying manuscript book or two, filled with early pen and ink versions. Writing drains you, but computer screens speed up the process and drain you too fast. Pen in hand, a window to stare through, technology switched off, words seep out at their own pace.
As a writer you don't have to chase after everything. Sit, and maybe things come to you.
Writing by hand in front of the Austrian view was deliberate. Unplanned is the fact that I’ve broken my foot. On arrival in the house I tumbled down its front steps. I suspect a message from the universe. ‘We told you to SLOW DOWN.’
Here’s a great slow-down tool – the iNaturalist app. How good are you at distinguishing one hoverfly from another? Do you even see them? Pause on a summer walk, stare toward some plant long enough, and one may appear. Snap a picture. Upload it. iNaturalist helps you identify it. Into the bargain, you’re adding to a global archive of sightings and becoming a citizen scientist.
I love how this app has slowed down my walks. No longer charging through a landscape on my exercise loops, I stop to see who is sharing it with me. Close-up photos introduce me to wondrous, colourful aliens. Linguistically it’s a wonder too, for these plants and insects come with great names. Here are a few from the last week: 22-spotted ladybird; birch catkin bug; nettle pouch gall midge; bristly oxtongue; dingy footman.
Wafting on to the paper as I write: a migrant hoverfly with its orange and black banded bum. It’s living up to the migrant name: I saw my first in Suffolk last week.
A virtue of not having a book contract is that you don’t have a deadline. Your book can stay a part of you for as long as you like. You can grow together.
For years now I’ve been writing a memoir. Pages accrued. The other day I realized that only procrastination was preventing completion, so I did set a deadline and wrapped it up in three weeks. Now it’s sitting there, steeping.
[I’m back in London, tended by our wonderful NHS, and in our garden a hummingbird hawkmoth is visiting our verbena. On my handwritten page there’s a remaining paragraph of pretentious blather – never to be typed up and soon to be crumpled.]
Hope you’re healing well.
My 5 month old grand-daughter was getting fed up a few days back - and we sat outside and watched a bee collecting pollen. We watched for a good 10 minutes, and the relief of just slowing down together was strangely calming and energising. I generally write straight onto the screen but I've started making notes in handbooks just in the last 2 months. Again, calming and energising. Thoroughly recommend slowing down.