Edit, Please!

When I worked in the ICU as a resident, one of my daily tasks was to write a detailed note on each patient after I had seen, assessed, and come up with a plan of care for him or her. The attending doctor of the ICU had a saying that stuck with me through the years and I’ve applied it to many types of writing, not just the chart notes that he referred to: “Your note should be long enough to be good, short enough to be better.”

As a writer, I do not want people to skim my words. I know that people do it—I do it, too. But my goal is to make my writing succinct enough that my readers read every word I write, and don’t feel that I could have left something out.

Lately, I’ve been paying more attention to editing myself as I’ve been creating content for my website as well as writing fiction.

For example, in the first paragraph of this blog post, I started out with this phrase: “…after I had seen them, assessed them, and come up with a plan of care for them.” Upon editing, I cut three words. Then I added three words, so my rewrite, while not more succinct, was hopefully clearer and, shall we say, “less flabby.”

Here are my rules for editing, which I apply to everything from text messages and emails to blog posts, web content and short stories.

1. Re-read the piece before hitting send. For some reason, the auto-correct on my smart phone changes the word “mom” to “Jim.” If I didn’t re-read my text messages, I might have sent this one to my husband: “Sleeping at Jim’s tonight, not sure when I’ll be home.”
2. Read the piece out loud. Okay, I don’t do this with text messages or with personal email, but I do it every time I want to make sure that my meaning is clear and can’t be mistaken. So, every time I send an email to someone I don’t know well, I read it aloud first.
3. Put the piece away after finishing a draft and then come back to it. Sometimes with a blog post, I can only leave it for a few hours, but ideally I have at least a day or two. And with bigger projects, weeks is preferable.
4. Check for redundancies. If I am reading a piece and I feel like the author already told me something, that’s when I start skimming. Trust the reader!
5. Keep to the word limit. For blog posts, I now limit myself to 500 words. My first draft of this piece had a word count of 570, the final draft word count is 469. Let me know if you miss any of the words I cut!

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Rejection Letters and Turkish Taffy

When I pitch an idea for an article or an idea, I do it electronically. 

In fact, if the editor or agent won’t accept pitches by email I move on. Sure, I might be missing a wonderful opportunity but my feeling is that if that person is not comfortable with electronic submission then I probably won’t have the patience to work with him. It’s a fast paced world out there, if you can’t keep up, move over.

I have long ago given up writing everything out by hand, printing it, making edits, and then re-entering everything. And I’m not even sure we keep envelopes in the house anymore for the obligatory SASE. These days everything I do is directly on my computer. I edit in my head and make my corrections using the keyboard. It’s far more efficient and after decades of doing it this way, it’s how I feel most comfortable.

Electronic writing and submission makes me happy because of its efficiency and it makes the trees happy for the non-usage of paper but it means that I miss out on what is arguably one of the most important rites of passage in writing: the hardcopy rejection slip.

All of the writing greats have stories of their work being rejected. They take great pride in saving those rejection slips in a folder to pull out once they become successful. In fact, here is a list of some of our better books and the amount of times they were rejected:

Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis (15)
Carrie, Stephen Kng (30)
Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfeld and Mark Victor Hansen (140)
Diary of Anne Frank (16)
Dr. Seuss books (15)
Dubliners, James Joyce (22)
Dune, Frank Herbert (23)
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (38)
Harry Potter book one, J. K. Rowling (9)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach (18)
Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl (20)
M*A*S*H, Richard Hooker (17)
The Peter Principle, Laurence Peter (16)
The Prncess Diaries, Meg Cabot (17)
Watership Down, Richard Adams (26)
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle, (26)

Just think of the beauty in all those rejection slips – “Sorry J.K. Rowling, we don’t think this will attract an audience.”

Those rejection slips become an important part of a writer’s history. It seems that you’re really nobody in the world of writing until you amassed your share of people telling you “no.”

Oh don’t get me wrong, I get plenty of electronic rejections “this piece does not fit our list” “Cute story – good luck” “Not open to submissions” but they just don’t have the same “zing” as a piece of paper sent through the U.S. Mail in which a real live person bellies up to the bar telling you to your face “nope, not now – hot shot.”

The hardcopy rejection of yore could be tacked to the wall – a constant reminder of “just who the hell does he think he is?” spurring you ever onward. Instead, these days we get an email that once read is lost in the daily onslaught of incoming information.

It’s just not the same.

I’m not saying that things should be changed, they shouldn’t. Electronic submission is the quickest and most efficient way to get anything done, I guess I’m just saying that in the good old days, you know the ones where I had to walk one mile uphill to school in the morning and then walk one mile uphill home in the afternoon?, there was a certain distinction and incentive-spurring quality to the now defunct hardcopy rejection letter that I do, along with Turkish Taffy, sorely miss.

***

Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

You were wondering how I would fit in the Turkish Taffy, weren’t you? 

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Grammar-ease: Comma power

The comma. It’s such an easy piece of punctuation to leave out or add to a sentence, but it can have a powerful effect on meaning. I hope this post shows you just how much the correctly placed comma matters.

Take this favorite line: Let’s eat Grandma. Unless the Big Bad Wolf is talking, the line should be Let’s eat, Grandma. The motto with this one is ‘commas save lives.’

Another favorite example is an actual book title on the topic of punctuation: Eats, Shoots & Leaves. A panda eats, shoots & leaves. I always get a chuckle from this one because it’s so visual for me. Does he have a big meal before shooting and leaving? It’s great fodder for a mystery writer. Remove the comma, and see how the line changes. Eats Shoots and Leaves. Makes much more sense, doesn’t it? Pandas certainly eat bamboo shoots. And they can leave.

Ever see the road sign that depicts children crossing the street? The sign reads Slow children crossing.  Children tend to have a lot of energy, for them to be slow when crossing the street, well, I don’t see it. The text should be: Slow, children crossing. Drivers may not heed the sign without the comma in place.

I couldn’t resist including this:.

Image from HCHG Golf Society

Another popular example is a teacher asking the class to punctuate this line correctly. A woman without her man is nothing.  Apparently all the boys wrote: A woman, without her man, is nothing. All the girls wrote: A woman: without her, man is nothing. Can you see how powerful the comma is? And how the writer’s perspective has an effect?

A British newspaper printed this line: The defendant said his barrister had a history of drug abuse. The same newspaper then printed a correction: The defendant, said his barrister, had a history of drug abuse.  Big difference between the two, isn’t there?

Commas can help your readers figure out which words go together in a sentence and which parts of the sentences are the most important. Missing commas tend to confuse the reader. As a writer, you want your readers to keep moving forward on the page, so avoid confusion when  you can.

Do you enjoy working with commas? Do you notice examples like the above either in  your own writing, or when you’re reading? 

Lisa J. Jackson is an independent editor, writer, New England region journalist, and a year-round chocolate and iced coffee lover. She writes fiction as Lisa Haselton, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is on the staff of The Writer’s Chatroom. 

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MWA University – a day with mystery writers

I love mysteries. I’ve read them forever and it’s my writing genre of choice. There’s just something intriguing about trying to figure out the answer to the puzzle before “the end.”

So, I was quite excited to spend this past Saturday in Boston attending MWA-U. Fellow NHWN blogmates, Diane and Julie were there, too.

MWA-U is a full-day writing ‘university’ put on by the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) organization. The day teaches skills for writing a novel from the spark of an idea through to publication. This particular day was open to MWA members and non-members, was quite affordable ($50), and was conveniently located. All instructors are published novelists, several teach at the college level.

This post highlights a few of the speakers and some take-aways I had.

First up on the agenda was Jess Lourey who spoke about what to do once you have a story idea. She put us right to work, too!

Jess uses a pyramid approach to writing her novels. Step 1 is to write a one-sentence summary of your book. This was the first time I’ve heard to start there. I always considered it the last thing to do.

Jess believes that if you put in the time to get a solid 1-sentence novel summary at the start, you’ll be more focused as you get to writing.

After listening to her, and actually trying to develop my own 1-sentence summary, I agree. She says it’s worth spending a few days on this step. We only had a few minutes to try it.

The second step is to expand the sentence into a paragraph, and the fifth step is to expand the paragraph into a page. (Yes, I’m skipping around.)

The third step is to develop a character bible. It’s as simple as using a single subject spiral notebook. Glue photos or pictures from magazines in this bible and write out general descriptions for your characters and you’ll always have the details at hand, and visuals for those moments when you need inspiration.

We also got to spend time describing our antagonists.

Why don’t you take a couple of minutes to do what we did: Do you know your antagonist’s full name? What he/she physically looks like? What is in his wallet/her purse, refrigerator, or trash can right now?

The day featured 2 fellow New England mystery writers: Hallie Ephron and Hank Phillippi Ryan.

Hallie spoke about revisions, and, wow, she gave me a couple of tricks I knew of but didn’t apply to my own work.

The biggest is that once the first draft of the novel is done, put it away for at least 2 weeks (I knew that), then when you do go back to it, read it through from start to finish.

That italicized part gave me an “ah ha” moment. I have a few novels ‘in the drawer.’ One is a favorite that I long to get back to, but when I got stuck, instead of plowing through (which is what a writer should do), I started rewriting from the start. I never truly finished a solid first draft.

Print the manuscript and read it through from start to finish. Make marks on the pages, make notes wherever, but read the manuscript through from start to finish. Look at the work as a whole before going back with the editing hat. The best revision can only be done with the full story laid out in front of you first.

I won’t accept a client’s manuscript that isn’t finished and until now, I hadn’t applied that rule to my own novels!

Hank spoke about the writing life. Hank has a career as an investigative journalist. She’s been writing fiction for the past 7 years.  She spoke to us about things she wished someone had told her as she entered the fiction world.

Points such as:

• Your first draft will be terrible – so accept it. The majority of writers, successful and not, think ‘this has got to be the worst drivel ever written.’ Let yourself be okay with crappy first drafts. You can’t polish a story into perfection without first getting some words on the page to play with.
• Rejection is not always about the book. Have you ever read something that just didn’t strike you, and then read it later and wondered how you could have put it down at all? It’s all about getting your manuscript in front of the right person who is in the right mood at the the right time.

If you’re interested, here’s a link to a pdf list of Recommended Reading we received. Not all books focus on the mystery genre, but most do.

I came away from the full day tired, but energized; overwhelmed, but inspired; over-full with ideas, but ready to get to work.

Spending any time with writers has those effects on me. There’s just something  about being able to talk writing with writers that can’t be matched.

MWA-U is offered several times a year across the country. Maybe it’ll be hosted at a location near you soon.

Do you enjoy attending writing workshops? There are so many out there – how do you find ones that you want to attend?

Lisa Jackson is an independent editor, writer, New England region journalist, and a year-round chocolate and iced coffee lover. She writes fiction as Lisa Haselton, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is on the staff of The Writer’s Chatroom. She is a member of Sisters in Crime (mystery writers), and is a board member of the New England Chapter of Sisters in Crime. She’s also getting back to writing her favorite novel.

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More examples of removing redundancies

This post is an add-on to the one I wrote in August where I covered ten examples of redundancies and readers supplied a few of their own.

Here are some more redundant phrases, in bold, to keep in mind and keep out of your own writing.

1.  Many product landing pages going for the hard sell have “…and as an added bonus…“. It’s implied that a ‘bonus’ is in addition to the base product/service, so ‘added’ is extraneous.

2.  ”She is not available at the present time.” ‘At present’ means ‘at this time,’ so you only need: “She is not available at this time.” Or even better: “She is not available now.”

3.  ”The coyote is in close proximity to…” or “He is under close scrutiny.” Drop ‘close’ in both of these since proximity means ‘close in location,’ and scrutiny means ‘close study.’

4.  ”My promotion came at a time when I was hoping to cut back on my hours.” Since ‘when’ refers to something coming, ‘at a time’ is unnecessary.

5.  Can you see the redundancy in each point below?

• Let’s collaborate together on this project.
• We should meet together to work through the details.
• The musicians joined together in harmony.
• The groups will merge together next month.

Can someone or something collaborate, meet, join, or merge in a way other than “together”? No.

6.  ”She made a definite decision about his punishment.” If you make a decision that is good, bad, final, or temporary, it is always ‘definite’ at that time. And you can’t make an ‘indefinite’ decision. 

7.  Enter in – is there any way to enter other than ‘in’? No. Just use ‘enter.’

8.  I’ve fallen into this trap when free writing, have you? ”The story first began…” There’s only ever one beginning, so ‘first’ can be tossed.

9.  One of my favorites is foreign imports. Imports originate in other countries, so  ’foreign’ is redundant.

There are so many more, but these are on my current short list and I thought it would be fun to share.

Do any redundant phrases come to your mind right now? Share them below if you like.

Lisa Jackson is an independent editor, writer, New England region journalist, and a year-round chocolate and iced coffee lover. She writes fiction as Lisa Haselton, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is on the staff of The Writer’s Chatroom which is now a 5-time winner of Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers, where she gets to chat with best-selling authors, non-fiction writers, publishers, and other writing professionals on a weekly basis.

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Re-vision: To See Again

It’s November, National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO), when ambitious writers pound out a novel in a notoriously short month – only thirty days, several of which are devoted to the preparation, enjoyment and digestion of Thanksgiving. I’m expecting twenty people for the feast, which is easy: cook a turkey, bake some pies and lay in plenty of wine.It’s feeding the dozen or so who will start arriving on Tuesday and stay until Sunday, and who need breakfast, lunch, dinner and beds, that’s a challenge. Add two birthdays to the mix (and homemade, decorated, cakes), and it becomes clear that there’s no time for drafting anything new. But the chopping, prepping, visiting and general mayhem are quite conducive to the act of rewriting, which is what I’m up to this month.

I’m working on a novel that I researched and drafted between 1995 and 2001.  A young and inexperienced agent represented it briefly, but she lost her job before she could sell it. Frankly, I don’t think anyone could have sold it. Back then, it was unwieldy and shapeless, but I was in love with my own effort and thought others would be, too.

In the intervening ten years, I’ve seen the flaws, and I’ve been episodically reworking this novel, whose word-count has dropped from a whopping 140,000 words to under a hundred thousand. I’ve lost count of the revisions – but never the story, which is a dark tragedy set in Vermont in 1958. And I’ve never given up on it, although I have put it on the shelf for long, dusty, intervals.

I’m a great believer in those dusty intervals, and I try to allow shelf time for everything I send out; I even try to let a blog post sit overnight before launching it into cyberspace. There’s a similarity here to romance, and how the hunky date might not look so handsome the next morning.

It’s misleading to think that there’s some kind of magical alchemy that occurs while words wait overnight, but I’m convinced it’s not the typescript that changes – it’s the writer who returns to a work with a little distance and a different set of eyes. Not only do the grammatical errors and logical lapses glare back in the morning light, but so do the overall structure and the narrative shape – the arc – of the story.

Oh, I know what it’s like to fall in love with your own work, to think that what has flowed onto the page is just perfect – inspired, even. And it may well be. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved. And this is especially true of a large work, one that grows by accretion.

Every time I have revised Elegy for a Girl, it has become a tighter, more gripping story. And now, I’m seeing it again, and adding more torque to the characters, language and plot. Sixteen years into this project, I’ve developed experience and faith in revision – and comfort in knowing I have the current best text to return to, if need be.

This is my second or third revision of this novel this year; I’ve lost count. What’s driving this work is the offer of representation from an agent who has read it as an advocate for the reader. She knows her stuff – and she loves the book.

What I’ve done this time – which maybe will be the last revision – is mapped the book, scene by scene. I’m reintegrating a character who I once edited out, I’m noting the pacing, and fine-tuning the overall rhythm of what happens, when.

Each time I revise this book, I learn something else about craft. In the beginning, I learned about characterization and plot and how to integrate research into a story. Another time, I learned that pruning and cutting improved its development – just as cutting away branches in the orchard promotes better tree growth and more fruit. Now, with an agent waiting for the typescript, I’m learning how to take my writing one step further up the professional ladder.

I’m thankful for learning patience over sixteen years: patience and the value of revision. What about your writing life are you thankful for?

  Deborah Lee Luskin is the author of the award-winning novel, Into The Wilderness, “a fiercely intelligent love story” set in Vermont in 1964. She is a regular Commentator on Vermont Public Radio and teaches for the Vermont Humanities Council. Learn more at her website: www.deborahleeluskin.com

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Some resources for editors and writers

As I am always either writing or editing, or doing a tango with both skills, I’ve found that having certain resources within arm’s reach is priceless.

Granted, most resources are online, so those are just keystrokes, or a couple clicks away, but sometimes a combination of online and paper works best.

So, here is a peek into some resources I use consistently for pulling an article together or editing a manuscript.

onelook.com - Type in a word and it searches numerous dictionaries, then click on the word next to the dictionary you’d like to use. I’m always using this. (online)

Merriam-Webster online - Merriam-Webster is the standard for the contracted editing I do, so sometimes using this specific online dictionary works best. I also have a hard cover of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th Edition within reach at all times. (online or paper)

Chicago Manual of Style - Online version allows you to select 15th or 16th edition. Need a paid subscription. When I need to look something up in the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), I admit I’m challenged many times to figure out where it is found, so I go to the online CMS, type in the word I’m looking for and select 15th edition (since that’s what I’m using in hard cover).  I do the online search and I’m usually rewarded with a list of sections where I can find more information. I then open my hard copy CMS and easily find the reference I need. (online and paper)

For instance, I just edited a manuscript that had a lot of U.S. Navy, Navy, and USS ship name. I knew the “USS” was correct as written, but CMS does not require periods in “US”, and if a branch of the military is used without “US”, then it is lowercase. Instead of going to the hard copy CMS and looking up various ‘military’ categories, I went online, typed in “U.S. Navy” and discovered 2 referenced sections for “US Navy”. (example below)

Bing – I love this search engine for finding anything. Google is also good, of course, but Bing is my first choice. (online)

I need (and prefer) a combination of both online resources and paper-based. The variety works well for me.

What online and paper resources do you use on a regular basis?

Lisa Jackson is an independent editor, writer, journalist, and chocolate lover. She writes fiction as Lisa Haselton, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is on the staff of The Writer’s Chatroom where she gets to network with writing professionals on a weekly basis! © Lisa J. Jackson, 2011

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Tighten your writing by removing redundancies

How many times have you written or read “He thought to himself” or “She thought to herself”? Are you grinning and nodding right now? Do you know what is wrong with these phrases? 

Let me explain: If anyone is thinking, it is to him/herself, so “to himself” and “to herself” are redundant. Simply say “he thought” or “she thought”.

Self editing is a skill all writers should have and even though it’s impossible to know everything, learning what to look for can go a long way.

There are numerous phrases in everyday language that can be shortened and I’ve listed a few below. I hope you’ll find some “ah ha” items in this list that can help you trim redundancies out of your work in progress.

A faulty miscalculation –> A miscalculation (is there any ‘perfect’ miscalculation? no, they’re all faulty)

Basic fundamentals –> Basics *or* fundamentals

Completely destroyed –> Destroyed (if it’s completely destroyed, it is destroyed)

Free gift –> Gift

Full and complete –> Full *or* complete

Past history –> Past *or* history

Refer back –> Refer

Terrible tragedy –> Tragedy  (is there ever a good tragedy?)

True facts –> Facts  (if facts are false, they would be lies)

In editing manuscripts, I have fun discovering what a particular author uses consistently without realizing it.

The s/he thought to her/himself is the most common redundant phrase I find when reading published and unpublished manuscripts.

I’m always challenged to find redundancies, or any other issues, in my own work. As writers, we know what is in our head and we assume it’s what is on the page. Reading out loud and focusing on each individual word is a great way to find errors in writing, and keeping a list of redundant phrases that you come across will help you remain aware of them – and avoid them in your own writing.

I challenge you to start keeping a list of redundant phrases you come across in any piece of work, especially your own. Do you have any to share right now?

Lisa Jackson is an editor, writer, and chocolate lover. She’s addicted to Sudoku, cafés, and words. She writes fiction as Lisa Haselton, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is on the staff of The Writer’s Chatroom where she gets to network with writing professionals on a weekly basis — and you can, too! © Lisa J. Jackson, 2011

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Your Book, Your Way

Shortly after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, the publishing house was born: Publishers owned the presses, bought the rights to what they published, and established a network for marketing and distribution. Five hundred years later, digital technologies now allow authors to publish their own books, retaining the rights and sometimes earning money from the enterprise. In this rapidly changing industry, there’s a lot for an author to learn, and Sonja Hakala’s Your Book, Your Way: How to Choose the Best Publishing Option for Your Book, Your Wallet and Yourself is a great place to start.

            Hakala has many years’ experience in all aspects of the business, from author to book designer to publicist to publisher. She knows the industry, and she has written a guide outlining the many different methods writers now have to get their work to their audience. Audience is key: the author of a family history written for thirty to a hundred relatives has different publication needs from the author of a educational workbook, who has different needs from the author of a fast-paced thriller.

Your Book, Your Way lists and defines all the methods available to those who want to publish privately (books usually given as gifts to a small, specific, audience) or openly (books meant for sale in the marketplace), and then breaks down all the steps required to create a finished book, regardless of format. As Hakala points out: even eBooks need editing, formatting and design. She gives an overview of design elements a publisher must keep in mind for reading ease.

The heart of Your Book, Your Way, however, lies in the two chapters in the center of the book, one on marketing and the other on publishing math. In this digital age, it’s easy to publish; it’s much harder to sell books – no matter how they’re made available. Chapter Nine on marketing is full of advice for anyone who intends to sell their books, no matter how they’re published – including by a traditional, big house. It is these big houses that have set some of the – now archaic – standards in publishing, like the Standard Trade Discount, and other oddities of an industry whose established model is imploding.

In Chapter Ten, Hakala explains Publishing Math – including how independent publishing is likely to be more profitable for more writers than publishing with an old school publisher. Any writer intending to turn a profit would do well to learn the arithmetic Hakala explains with great clarity.

Your Book, Your Way is an essential text for anyone considering publishing their own or others’ books in today’s publishing arena. It includes a glossary of publishing terms, ample examples of parts of a book, cogent warnings against rushing unedited books into print, and a useful index. My one complaint is the sometimes hokey authorial voice, but even this is well-meant, and the clear presentation of complex information more than made up for this one stylistic tic.

Deborah Lee Luskin is the author of Into the Wilderness, winner of the 2011 Independent Publishers’ Gold Medal for Regional Fiction. Learn more at her website: www.deborahleeluskin.com

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Improve your writing with breathing time

Good creative work is always iterative. The artist – whether sculptor, singer, painter, or writer – does not one day attain some magical pinnacle of performance and settle into a routine of excellence born of repetition. The artist is always learning, improving, refining. Her life brings her new experiences which she weaves into her work, creating a state of constant evolution. There is nothing static or stagnant about art – it needs breathing room to flourish.

When I was working on a name for my marketing business, I had an initial idea that I fell in love with. It came to me from nowhere and seemed clever and creative. I started building my entire business concept around this one idea, re-tailoring my message and my collateral. My dad, who is – among other things – an artist and graphic designer, advised me to hold my horses. He said I should give the idea a little breathing room because, in his words, “you’ll probably hate it tomorrow.”

Now, Dad’s “tomorrow” wasn’t literal, but it turned out to be accurate. A couple of weeks later, I looked at my idea (which, thankfully, hadn’t yet been translated into graphic assets, a mission statement, or anything else) and I did, in fact, hate it. The same can happen with your writing. You sit down and crank out a blog post, an essay, a story, an interview article and it sounds good. You write, edit, and read it through all in one sitting. “I’m pretty good,” you think, and give yourself a pat on the back. Well, like my dad told me, hold your horses. Your first instincts are not always going to be your best. If you don’t give your writing a little breathing room, you’ll wind up submitting work that’s sub par.

Optimally, you’ll leave enough wiggle room in your deadline so you can “sleep on it” – give yourself 24 hours or so to step away from the work and come back with a fresh eye. But even if you can only afford an hour or two between the writing and the publishing/submitting, those sixty minutes can make a difference.

The beauty of breathing room is that it lets your subconscious get in on the action, and that, friends, is where a lot of your best stuff resides. Once you’ve slogged through the difficult process of putting that first draft into actual words, the stress of that initial hurdle passes and your brain moves into a different mode of operation. You relax a little. You’re willing to let things marinate a bit. As you step away from the draft and prepare to let it be for a while, the universe (or whatever you call your creative muse) will step in to do her part. She may deliver new inspirations through chance meetings, the discovery of related material during a random web search, or a subconscious memory that suddenly surfaces with a burst of clarity that knocks you upside the head.

When you return to your work, with fresh eyes and new insights, you’ll be well equipped to dive into the real work of writing – editing. It’s in the editing that you take those first instincts and shape them into your Best Work, but without the benefit of some breathing room, you’ll have trouble figuring out where to start. When we first extract words from our minds, they are still very much a part of us. It is difficult for us to even see where we should make changes (or – oh my! – deletions). In order to do the best by our work, we have to create some distance between our words and ourselves. We need to become as objective as possible so that we can make better choices. Breathing room does just that.

So, the next time you’re working against a deadline, make sure you factor some breathing room into your schedule. Give yourself (and your writing!) the gift of some time apart. Let your ideas marinate a little. Pay attention to what the universe delivers to you while you’re waiting to get back to work on the piece. And remember that you don’t have to stand by your first instincts. Sometimes they are nothing more than a good jumping off point, and your most brilliant work comes through only after you’ve given yourself the chance to come back with a clear head and a fresh eye.

Do you give yourself and your writing breathing room? If not, why not? When you do, do you see an improvement in your work?

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who, among other things, works as a marketing strategist and copywriter. She helps creative entrepreneurs (artists, writers, idea people, and creative consultants) discover their “natural” marketing groove so they can build their business with passion, story, and connection. She also blogs. A lot. She is a mom, a singer, and a dreamer who believes in small kindnesses, daily chocolate, and happy endings. Look her up on facebook or follow her on twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

Image Credit: Bethan Phillips

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