Magdalena Ball--On The Value of Slow Writing

 With great delight  I welcome Magdalena Ball to Slow and Steady Writers today, talking about her writing process and her new novel Black Cow. I am a great admirer of the versatility of her writing which encompasses poetry, short stories, reviews, articles as well as novels.  If you are lucky enough to attend her content rich workshops at Muse Writers Conference and Writers on the Move, you may find this hard to believe but she says she is one of the world's slow writers too...

On the Value of Slow writing

Since I'm out touring my new novel Black Cow, I've been doing a lot of interviews. The first thing I always get asked is about what I'm working on now. Of course I've got a work-in-progress and it's coming along, but if I provide a very exciting overview of the plotline, it doesn't mean that the book will hit the bookshelves within the next few months. I'm a s-l-o-w writer. Is that something I should admit? After all, buzz is all about right now. I'm doing my best to create buzz for my new novel. Should I disappoint my fans by telling them that it will be at least two years before I've finalised the first draft of my third novel, and that's not counting the six months in plotting I've already spent on it? Though it isn't as hot as the slow food movement, slow writing is gaining, well, momentum (that's momentum of the tortoise variety). Yes, it's a movement, if not a revolution.  So what is slow writing and why write slowly?

Slow writing is about putting quality before speed. Like a long, slowly cooked Coq Au Vin, slow writing is well crafted, with rich, complex flavours, and deep, powerful characters. This sort of writing can't be chugged out. There's not much in the way of a rote formula to help you if you want to write this kind of work. Everything has to be fresh, new, and impeccably crafted.  Slow writing not only takes time to craft at the front end, it takes revision. That's lots of revision, not only on our own, but with the help of a canny editor.  That often means that the work has to be left for a little while after a first draft is finished, maybe several months to gain some all-important perspective. Then the work has to be read critically, like a reader might, with an eye to rhythm, to character development, to story and character integration, to that subtle but critical transformation that occurs between the pages of the book. 

Research, Reading and Readers

Slow writing allows for full and extensive research. This means taking the time to really find out the historical context of the period you're writing in, reading extensively. It might involve travelling to your setting, or consulting other books, or interviewing experts.  

Slow writers have slow readers in mind. That is, readers who take the time to enjoy the care with which you've crafted your book, to enjoy the subtle references and connections, the implications, the deeper themes, and to find the poetry in your prose.

Slow writing doesn't mean that the book you create is difficult, unwieldy, or laborious. Quite the contrary, because the careful, slow crafting will almost always equate to a smoother, easier, and dare I say it, quicker read for the reader.  But together, the slow writer and the slow reader form a partnership that begins and ends with attention, that precious and all too rare commodity in these fast paced times. 

Magdalena Ball is the author of the novel Black Cow. Grab a free mini flip book of the book from 
Bewrite Books  http://www.bewritebooks.com/mb/BlackCow/BlackCow.html

And a final postscript from me to say that Black Cow truly is a very good book. When I have finished reading it I shall be adding yet another five star review to all the others already posted on Amazon. Find out more about the author and read an excerpt from Black Cow.