Try Slow

Sometimes, even during the Olympics, we need this reminder.

As I watch giant snowflakes cover my patio one by one, coating the tree branches and the sleeping garden bed with ice crystals, I’m contemplating Hawaii. But not for the reason you might think.

My husband and I will sometimes remind each other of a sign we saw on the north shore of Kauai a decade ago. We were driving to the edge of the Napali Coast to hike to one of the most breathtaking views in the entire state, when the road narrowed to one lane through a tiny village. On the side of the road someone had posted a hand painted sign that said:

Try slow.

It wasn’t a shaming sign with a picture of children at play, it wasn’t an alarming sign in all caps with exclamation points. It was just a simple suggestion from the Aloha State. As if to say, doesn’t that feel better? And it did. Immediately I could sense the cells in my body turning languid. And the feeling lasted. We had a beautiful hike where we took in the waterfalls, the ripples in the landscape or Cathedrals as they’re called, and the ocean waves crashing against the lava rocks.

The universe had sent me another reminder, this one more subtle than others I’ve received.

When I was 17, not long after I got my license, I begged my parents to let me go on my first roadtrip to visit my brother. Sean, who was in college, and his then girlfriend had invited me to the James Dean festival in Fairmount, Indiana, where James Dean was born. I was obsessed with the actor (an easy obsession since he only starred in three films before he died in a car crash!) Sean was studying art at Ball State just down the road.

My parents agreed to let me drive the 61 miles by myself. It was a straight shot on one highway after all. (They did not know I had been literally racing friends to school in my royal blue ‘81 Honda Accord hatchback, dubbed the little blue demon, just to see how fast it could go.) I even made a special mix tape for my first roadtrip and tucked it into the case on the passenger’s seat. I remember thinking everything had to be perfect for my first ever roadtrip, so my parents would let me take a longer one next time.

But when I slammed the accelerator to the floor and the little blue demon rumbled onto the freeway, my mix tape case slid off the seat. Instinctively I reached down to grab it. (Keep in mind, I’m probably driving 70 miles per hour in a 55 zone.) But as I swiveled and grasped the handle of the case I inadvertently took the steering wheel with me, running the left car tires off the pavement and onto the dirt shoulder.

When I glanced up and discovered what I’d done, now tilted, bouncing on the gravel, still barrelling down the highway at who knows how fast, I immediately panicked. Even though my driver’s ed instructor said, “for the love of all that’s holy never, ever, ever over correct. Wait for the next turn off. It will come.” But with my heart thrashing around my throat in my everything-must-be-perfect mindset, I yanked the steering wheel to get back on the pavement.

And the car flipped.

I landed, not upside-down, not on my side, but right side up. I’d caught enough air that I did an entire 360.

The crazy thing is I didn’t even KNOW I’d flipped until other drivers stopped to see if I was okay and told me what the blue demon had done. Pretty sure I blacked out because I remember opening my eyes to dirt and grass on the dash and the smell of fertilizer and not understanding how we’d gotten there. Luckily we’d landed in the median and not in oncoming traffic. And luckily I was wearing my seatbelt. (I have shared this story with my 17- and 14-year-old daughters who I pray are much safer drivers than I was) I was so SOOOO lucky.

Welp, I never made it to the James Dean festival and it took me a long time to learn the lesson of my accident (that wound up totaling the little blue demon).

On the rare occasion when I catch myself speeding now, I think about why I’m in such a hurry and what I might avoid or see if I just drive the speed limit. I’ve never regretted slowing down.

Recently I discovered I needed that reminder again with my manuscript. In one year I’ve written my second novel and revised it several times. This is a fast feat in itself as the first manuscript took me almost a decade to type the words “the end.”

I was excited by the story idea and the characters. I believe their evolution is actually teaching me something about myself and self compassion. But as I sped through revision after revision, scratching things off my list of character, plot, and pacing essentials, in the back of my mind were all the judges and critics telling me to hurry up and get it revised, and get feedback, and revise some more, and line edit, and send it out to query, and get an agent, and sign a publishing contract and, and, and… What was taking so long?

Last month after reaching the end of my epilogue for the dozenth time and not knowing what else there was to revise, I dipped my toe in the agent pool and sent out 12 queries. To my surprise I received three full manuscript requests. As I attached the 87,000 word document to my reply, another voice spinning around one of my brain caves spoke up. It’s not ready yet.

And sure enough within a few weeks my insecurity’s confirmation came with a kind rejection that said while she loved my premise, writing, voice, and world I’d created, it didn’t have that “must have feeling.”

So I ate some chocolate and reached out to my wonderful writing community, friends I’ve met through the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and the Kauai Writers Conference. Their supportive feedback has been critical in this often lonely world of writing. They offered a variety of advice: maybe it just wasn’t a fit for that agent, send out more queries, get some more eyes on it, wait for the others to get back to you.

Finally I took a step back and this time the voice in the back of my head said something I wasn’t expecting.

Try slow.

So I am hiring a recommended professional to take a look at it and offer feedback. While I wait several weeks for edits, I’m cracking open my worn copy of Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” for the fourth time and reading for inspiration Claire Daverley’s “Talking At Night,” Kate Clayborn’s “Georgie, All Along,” and Josh Mohr’s “Model Citizen.” I’m taking CeCe Lyra’s workshop on “Writing Interiority and Psychological Acuity.” And it looks like I’ll be shoveling snow later this afternoon instead of walking as I’d planned.

My hope is in the pauses, the in-between time, that new ways of seeing my characters and their wants and needs will seep in. And I’ll layer them into my novel in a way that feels integral to who my characters are becoming.

I just glanced up from my keyboard to zero in on one snowflake, to watch it fall all the way to the ground and to let myself be awestruck by nature, something I would’ve missed if I’d been racing to post this newsletter.