The Art of Writing a Novel Slowly

The mathematical genius Alexander Grothendieck once had a metaphor for solving problems. He suggested that instead of forcing open an impossibly hard kernel with a hammer and chisel, one should simply let it sit in water and wait. Over time, the shell softens and opens with ease. This is also true in writing; time is the only non-substitutable ingr... See more

What makes work good is time to read, think, slow down, and create a rich inner life. In other words, good work comes from slowing the fuck down and trusting that good ideas will come through if we give ourselves enough time and space to see them.

Full-time authors, for example, don’t actually type for 40 hours per week because they’d have little to say if they did. Instead, they spend most of their time collecting experiences. By the time they sit down to write, they’ve already experienced what they plan to write about, even if they aren’t entirely sure about what they’re going to say. By s

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Great, great question. In the world of writing, everyone wants to succeed immediately and without pain or effort. Really? Or they love to write books about how to write books, rather than actually writing . . . a book that might actually be about something. Bad advice is everywhere. Build a following. Establish a platform. Learn how to scam the sys

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My product won’t write sentences for you. The slow process of writing is what clarifies thought, shapes identity, and cultivates a lens to the world. Writing is the whole point; it isn’t a chore to optimize, it’s an infinite game.