in today’s world modern technology has added a lot to enhance everyday living. it enables us to communicate across vast distances, simplifies many daily tasks, and enables advances in many scientific areas. it helps us to perform tasks that were once long and laborious in minutes. it removes the time from a task.

we have engaged with tools when word processing to simplify and speed up the process of writing. the spell and grammar checker. the formatting tool. all of these has aided to quicken the time between the generation of the idea to it appearing on a page to publication. and now we have “AI” being pushed by large tech companies who promote the speed it can do everyday writing tasks. they say it is the dawning of a new age of writing. that it will enhance our work and make things easier. that the distance between idea to publication is almost nonexistent.

but is this rush to embrace speed such a good thing?

when i write or read i like to take my time. i like to chew the words over in my mouth. formulate and restructure the sentence in my mind. think ahead to where that sentence is going and contemplate what possible one could follow. for a while i dabbled with speeding up my work by writing my first draft directly onto a computer device. i reduced down the process between idea, composition, editing. speed was the king. but was my writing any better? was the process easier? no.

so i went back to basics. i put time back into the process. instead of the computer i switched to a notebook and pen. i allowed myself time to chew over thoughts and ideas. for the sentence to brew in my head. it may have only added a few extra seconds but they were valuable seconds. and i added further time. instead of being in a rush to get everything down i added deliberate pauses. stopping mid scene or paragraph and leaving it to pick up another day. the novel would get written but it needed the time to plant roots, develop its stem system, branch out and flourish.

the writing world has been guilty of this push for speed for a long time. writers publishing word counts. publishers demanding certain word numbers. a false dichotomy that demanded volume over quality. how often have we all read a book and thought ‘this section drags?’ what if there had been a bit less insistence on word count? what if the need for word numbers had been reduced? then we could have spent time on choosing our words more carefully and putting forward our best sentences.

so i demand of myself: be slow. take time in the writing process. don’t rush towards arbitrary targets. reduce the pace. grab a pen and note book. better still a slab of granite and carving tools. chip away at my sentences. letter by letter. word by word. until i have a great monument to my writing. something to stand tall and admire.