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 read more slowly)
Is the same true with internet speed? I don’t know. I’m curious if I’ll be able to even tell the difference when we get our new system. Will it make a great deal of difference? Eh, probably not. What’s important is not how fast the internet is, but what I’m doing with it, just like with books — quality over quantity.
That being said, I’m going for a faster internet speed, and I’m going to put some effort into writing faster as well.
Yeah, I know this was a “chatty” blog post. I’ll try to put together one you can easily skim through next week. Any suggests on topics?