Reading: The Hunger Games by, Suzanne Collins
On the Farm: 4 eggs, all white puppy covered in mud
Thinking About: Snow tires


Can you be the fastest?

Can you tweet it quicker than the writer next to you? Can you speed dial? How fast is your texting? Do you even read whole articles anymore or just skip to the good stuff? Is the fast food line too slow for you anymore? Do you speed date? How fast can you run? For fun? When chased? How many queries can you drop in a day?

And the big question?

Can you do 100 math problems in 6 minutes? Could you do it in 4th grade?

Eldest (who is a major over achiever, type A, obsessive student) came home devastated over some timed math tests. She got them all right . . . but not in enough time.

At first I was incensed. Timed? Really? And a state mandated timed test?

I, of course, calmed down once I talked to the much wiser and calmer Encyclopedia Man and the Bestest Ever Friend. They reminded me that rote learning was what it was all about when we were kids and math is way more exciting now. And that learning your multiplication tables like they're your own name is actually valuable. If you want to succeed at higher math then you need to get that pesky memorization stuff out of the way and JUST KNOW IT.

Okay.

So fine.

I've calmed down about the test.

And after two days of practice, eldest can now do 117 multiplication problems in six minutes because she's been staying up until 11 o'clock doing it every night (obsessively).

But the FAST thing has stuck to me. It's like a little demon on my back. Fast has such high value in our society. Refer to this back and forth on Cheryl Klein's blog for an interesting example of how she sees it affecting the writing world.

This is not new information I realize. Twitter, Facebook, fast food, instant messaging, cell phones, email, are all about how fast you can get your information to someone and how fast they can respond.

You've got to admit it, because we all do it. You send out a query by email and then sit at your computer checking for messages. If you have to go out, you take your iphone and check email while you're away. If you're sending something to your agent, you remind him or her of your cell phone number, your home number, your email address, your blog address, the color of your house and say CALL ANYTIME.

And when this kind of urgency bleeds over into creative writing it becomes corrosive. The feeling that we must speed along, we've got to ride the vampire trend, or get in on the ground floor of pigeons, or make sure our totally original book about talking chairs makes it into the hands of the best agent / editor FIRST.

I spent an interesting summer revising. Just revising. For months.

First I let the book sit for several weeks.

Then I read it.

Then I gave it to Mr. Encyclopedia Man to read.

I bought note cards one day. And paper clips and highlighters the next.

I sat in a little tiny cubby, at a nice desk, with too much candy, and went page by page. I clipped note cards to every single sheet.

I told myself that it wasn't brilliant. It was okay and needed work.

I created a leaning tower of paper clipped pages.

I took pictures of them.

I checked out more books from the library and just looked at art associated with my subject.

I ate too much.

Then I went page by page and made my edits.

Then I wrote four new chapters, added another character and changed a major plot point (or two).

I shared it around to some more readers (like my lovely, wonderful, super-smart critique partners over at Pentales) .

I made the corrections they suggested.

Finally, I made it pretty.

And that my friends, felt to me like the slow approach to food. It felt like it took forever. Like I was swimming in jello. Like my cell phone had become rotary dial and my email into overseas snail mail.

As I was trapped in the murky lime colored depths of my manuscript, I started to see a little light above. And then a little more.

I felt tranquil.

And the Tranquility of Creativity can't be overrated when I'm getting texts, and new Twitter followers, and a blog post due over at Pentales, and cell phone messages, and . . . and . . . and . . .

Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons