What are some elements that might help unlock or facilitate "slowcore" value for writing as an art form?

A few ideas:

• Quality and depth of care, thinking, and attention that informs the writing process.
• Aesthetic quality and timelessness of design elements (blogs, websites, book covers, etc.)
• Sustainable ways for writers to work out of intrinsic motivation and make optimal use of their gifts with full creative freedom and integrity.
• Well-maintained spaces for discovery of new and old work through pertinent social, cultural, and artistic context (e.g., Elle Griffin's idea of blog posts organized into "writer playlists").
• Skilled curation by trustworthy and respected literary taste-makers.
• Unimpeded access for readers through non-coercive means.
• Thriving arts networks and interdependent collectives (literary "scenes") optimized for patterns of gift culture, economic reciprocity for writers, and respect for creative labor (i.e., the antithesis of chokepoint capitalism).
• Recognizing and respecting the inherent limits of human time and attention (e.g., aligning with Ethereum's philosophy of subtraction).
• Generously "retro-rewarding" work that's already been done, but for which writers haven't captured much value (e.g., writers' back-catalogues of published work).
• Built-in ways to reduce existing cognitive burdens and attention labor for writers, readers, and publishers.
• Open-sourcing: releasing work in positive-sum ways that help reverse enclosure patterns.

Whether or not you relate to slow culture and the "slowcore" moniker, perhaps you'll find something worth pondering in this list.

May a thousand slowcore patterns bloom.

(Excerpt from “Slowcore Nerd Notes: On Value Flows” by Danica Swanson. Originally published at A Digital Incubation Space on Paragraph, June 3, 2024. Thumbnail art by O. Von Corven, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).