Slow Thinker, Fast Writer
A new perspective on my writing style
Image: ©Lisa Rogers 2026
For years, I said I was a slow writer. Thanks to content mill work in my earliest days of writing professionally (everyone’s gotta start somewhere), nearly a decade of content writing every week for a tech recruitment firm, national novel writing month (write a book in 30 days), ghostwriting others’ stories (meeting deadlines set by others), and 5 years of on again, off again (a year or so in between) of fiddling around with Book 1.
So, when I sat down to start book 2, it took more time than I’d like to admit to get off the ground. A bit more about that here. But one thing I learned from Book 1 and from years of writing for others on others timelines is that I need a deadline, or rather, accountability, and I knew just where to turn. We meet every other week. Twice a month. I send her my chapters as I write them. Two at a time. Very rarely, I send only one chapter.
I did that recently, earlier this month. I didn’t know where the next chapters were going. Yet. And I felt awful. I couldn’t meet my own pseudo-self-imposed deadlines. I’d agreed to send chapters. Plural every other week. But as loud as the characters were in my mind, I didn’t have an outlet yet. So, I decided to take a walk in one of my character’s shoes. I’ve been procrasti-reading everything. Books. Substacks. If it’s got words, I’m looking at it, instead of working on my own.
You know when you’ve lost something and someone tells you to do something else, and as soon as you’re not looking for the thing that’s when you’ll find it? I’m slowly realizing that’s kind of how I write. I used to think I was slow writer, especially when it came to my own material. But, it turns out, I’m not a slow writer at all. I’m a slow thinker.
I take my time and have to noodle over things as I go about my days, and I have to also be OK with going a few days without thinking about my writing at all, or at least not about the book. Other characters want their say, too.
Remember Old Moss? How about Marnie Pippin? Both have been piping up, wanting to share new slices of their lives, new stories, as I think about The Weaver Awakes lately, and it is highly likely you’ll see them again before I’ve made it to the halfway point of The Weaver Awakes Book 2.
But once I have what I want to say in my head, the words flow, and at least two chapters are written in the span of a morning. Three to four hours to write. A week and change to think. And as much as I am working on writing Book 2, here’s a shameless plug for Book 1, heading into formatting the second half of this month, ARC readers in August, and publication in October.
If you can’t wait till October and want to check out chapter 1 of The Weaver Awakes Book 1 and support an author at the same time, check out my stampfans The Weaver Awakes & Other Stories. The first 100 subscribers can get Chapter 1 and one month free.
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Slow thinker, fast writer. Realizing this has given me a rather calming perspective on my process. Notes are still scattered in notebooks, index cards, phone notes, and the backs of English lesson worksheets, scraps of paper not unlike when I used to write bits of scene or character development on napkins while my parents talked when we were at dinner.
Want to know what happens to a seen-not-heard kid who’s an only child and prefers to live inside her mind? This. This is what happens. Stories. Poems. Slow thinkers. Fast writers. Or slow writers. Slow thinkers. I used to think I was late to the party, a late bloomer. But, maybe it was never that. Maybe it was simply letting go of the fear of publication.
One more word to maybe rethink. Pantser. Flying by the seat of my pants writer. Ok, maybe. But I learned a better word recently (thanks, Fallon!) - Discovery or Exploratory writing - no rigid outline, just a general idea, and characters in your ear, erm head. Think of it less like a high school outline and a little more stream of conscious.
Read the craft books. Hire the editor. Hire the story coach. Join the writer’s club. Read books for fun. Read your story from end to start. Out loud. Do all the things. Write daily. Something. But find the rhythm that fits you best and don’t be surprised if it turns out to be what you thought was a bad thing is a good thing.
Maybe it’s the best thing, and the right thing to get you through your first book or messy middle of the second book of a trilogy. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
What’s surprised you the most about yourself as you write?