The importance of speed

I use Comcast as my internet provider. Recently, they emailed me (perhaps you got it too?) telling me that the internet speed I pay for is more than my modem can handle. So I’m paying for 1 gbps, but only getting a fraction of that because my modem is too old and slow.

They were trying to get me to rent a modem from them, but instead I bought a new modem from another retailer and a new mesh network that can handle the faster wifi.

So, what does this have to do with writing? I don’t know, but I feel like there should be an analogy here — ideas come in faster than your old system of writing can handle them — or some such thing.

It does make me think about how fast I work and how fast I ‘’should” work.

I used to write three novels and a novella a year. This year, I am wondering if I’ll get two novels done. Yep, my writing has gotten slower. I used to be able to write 2000–2500 words a day, now I’m happy is I get 1000–1500.

Why is this happening? I don’t know. It could be the book I’m writing — I’ve had to rework the plot a couple of times. It could be my attention span getting shorter. It could be because I’ve started writing by hand instead of typing (which is much faster). It could be a combination of all these things.

What is important, though is not the speed of my writing, it’s the quality. It doesn’t matter how fast I get the words down, it matters how fast they can be read (if you’re not interested in what you’re reading, you do tend to…