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Want to Write More Often? Consider Being Less Efficient.
There’s a surprising benefit to a slower, more labor-intensive writing method.
I was 8 or 9 when I saw Harriet the Spy. It’s a fun little movie about a girl who writes frank (sometimes unkind) observations about the people around her because she’s a ‘spy.’ The plot didn’t matter to me.
What mattered to me was her notebook.
Look at that thing. It’s nearly full, and the glimpses we get of its pages show a wild mess of scribbles and doodles. The corners are worn, the spine creased and beaten. I took a single look at that thing and fell in love.
From then on, I obsessed over making my own journals like that. I started carrying around a notebook, like you probably did when you were younger. I tried to fill it as much as I could, but I’d get self-conscious by page six and abandon it (only to try again months later). I had a dozen abandoned journals lying around the house (which is a lot for a 9-year-old), but I wanted to write something. It’d be a few more years until I learned how to put words down without feeling embarrassed.
