Slow Writing

Thoughts on the picturebook process

Around corners — Photo by Leo Wieling on Unsplash

In the past year and half I’ve been working on a picturebook.

Eighteen months is relatively quick for me for this particular form of writing. I’ve had one picturebook manuscript take more than a decade to become complete, to grow into what it was supposed to be. But still, for just over 600 words, it’s a slow process. It requires something beyond patience. I’ve given up fighting this. I fought the process when I was younger, when I’d try to push through. Back then I’d focus on “story.”

More than any other form, the completion of one of these is concerned with the idea, and the maturation and expressing of an idea. An idea from your deepest gut.

It’s about taking corners in the dark to see what’s there. And then, once around that corner, you’re waiting for the sun to come up to reveal the truth in the thing. There is no flashlight or Enid Blyton torch or even iphone to illuminate. And at times that morning sun doesn’t arrive when you expect it to. There’s a real sense of being left on the other side of a corner in the dark, waiting, even as I go about whatever else—whatever “normal life”—my days ask of me in the meantime.