25 Days of Writing: Day 11 - Envy
Friday, March 26th, 2021 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizvogel(No, I haven't forgotten about this; I've just been busy with other things.)
11. What do you envy in other writers?
Speed. I'm a very slow writer. On the plus side, almost all of what I write tends to stay, so the case could be made that it's time well spent. On the minus side, it takes me forever to finish things. I look at writers who churn out short stories in one sitting, or a novel in a matter of months, and start wondering if I powdered their bones and added it to my breakfast cereal if I could absorb some of that productivity. (Not really. Bones are best gnawed whole.)
It's generally regarded, and wisely so, as a bad idea to compare yourself to other writers. And I'm not "comparing" myself, exactly. But the fact that other people produce stories -- some of them quite good -- at a pace that I can't hit even on my best days proves that it is possible to write that fast, and write well. And if it's possible, then it ought to be possible for me to do it, or at least come closer than I do. And yet here I plod along, at the pace of an unusually literate snail. I do get faster if I'm in practice, but my version of "faster" is still pretty slow.
I'd rather write 300 good words in a day than 1000 crappy ones, no doubt about it. But given the option, I'd prefer to write 1000 good ones.
11. What do you envy in other writers?
Speed. I'm a very slow writer. On the plus side, almost all of what I write tends to stay, so the case could be made that it's time well spent. On the minus side, it takes me forever to finish things. I look at writers who churn out short stories in one sitting, or a novel in a matter of months, and start wondering if I powdered their bones and added it to my breakfast cereal if I could absorb some of that productivity. (Not really. Bones are best gnawed whole.)
It's generally regarded, and wisely so, as a bad idea to compare yourself to other writers. And I'm not "comparing" myself, exactly. But the fact that other people produce stories -- some of them quite good -- at a pace that I can't hit even on my best days proves that it is possible to write that fast, and write well. And if it's possible, then it ought to be possible for me to do it, or at least come closer than I do. And yet here I plod along, at the pace of an unusually literate snail. I do get faster if I'm in practice, but my version of "faster" is still pretty slow.
I'd rather write 300 good words in a day than 1000 crappy ones, no doubt about it. But given the option, I'd prefer to write 1000 good ones.
