Slowing down
Why taking the time to do it right is worth it in the end
Sometimes (usually?) it’s worthwhile taking your time to do something properly. Okay, you might have a deadline which becomes more important, or if it’s an easy task you don’t need to think much about. But when it comes to art, to writing or creating something that you hope will be as pleasing to others as it is to you, what’s the rush?
On Wednesday evening I went with friends to see the incomparable Rosalía at the O2 in London, on the second night of a show that felt considerably fuller - sold out, in fact - than the last time I saw her perform a few years back. For the Motomami tour, the crowd was generally younger and mostly Spanish. This time around, it was very mixed with plenty of grey hair on show and a mix of nationalities. She also came with the incredible Heritage Orchestra and even though she’s never put on a bad show, this felt huge. A real event that you felt privileged to be a part of.
When this album, Lux, was released, Rosalía gave a series of interviews with magazine and newspapers, talking about the process of writing in 14 languages and her unorthodox method of spending a year just writing lyrics, with no music. In the streaming age it seems unusual, when artists seem to drop new music willy-nilly, sometimes at an insane pace. This feels like a move back to a proper album, especially when you consider that four of the album tracks were only very recently made available via streaming so if you wanted to listen to them before April you had to buy a physical copy. This was supposed to be an album you paid attention to and spent time with. Not hitting shuffle and getting a strange mega mix but hearing the music the way you were supposed to.
This approach makes me think about how we approach writing. I suppose it depends on what our expectations are for the works we create. In genre fiction, the demand can often be a book a year. If you’re writing a fast paced thriller, a tight three hundred page novel where the page-turning plot is what matters most, it can be very achievable. By far my quickest novel to write was Harlem After Midnight because, being a sequel, I already knew most of the main characters inside out and I knew who my murder victim was. All I had to do was keep writing and work out who did it as I went along! But if you’re writing something more complicated, with a more high concept storyline (aka what I’m writing now), it can be trickier.
I’m currently working on the third draft of my work in progress (and yes, there will be more to come after that, I’m sure!) and for now I’m still loving the premise. To keep things interesting for myself (this is a joke) I’ve changed the point of view and also the tense in each draft until finally this draft feels like it’s clicking into place. If I ever get a contract for this novel I’ll write a post about why I’ve made these choices, but as of yet there’s no guarantee of success! It seems like a long winded process and it’s now years since I wrote the first line of something that now is a long way from what I’m writing but was a necessary step into getting here.
There is no race to get this finished because if I rush it won’t be the novel that I want it to be. And this, I suppose, is something that I was reminded of while watching Rosalía perform her triumphant show this week. Taking the time to do something the way you want it to be done, ignoring outside pressure and also the demands we make on ourselves to finish something earlier, is vital. Sometimes we think that if we could just get our work in front of someone, if we strike while the iron is hot (for those writing something that seems popular right now) then it won’t matter that it’s not quite as polished as we want it to be. By all means, take advice. Find readers to tell you what needs work. But I, as much as anyone else, need to be reminded sometimes that the process is there for a reason and it will take a long as it takes.