Creativity: Supercharge Your Writing, Part III

I made a startling discovery. Back in 2016 I had been about to send a manuscript off to my editor and was beginning to research potential agents to send it to. At the time, there were passages and little problem areas that I knew needed to be fixed, but try as I might, I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Then tragedy struck and my cat was diagnosed with cancer. A C-scan and several thousand dollars later, the money earmarked for the edit was gone. The novel sat in my computer file gathering metaphorical dust for two years. About two months ago a little voice said, Look, it’s just sitting there. You might as well query it. Long story short, I pulled the manuscript out and began to go through it. To my surprise, those pesky sentences and problem areas were resolved fairly easily. Perhaps I’ve grown as a writer from 2016. I’m sure I have. But I think something else happened. There’s a process in creativity called incubation. It’s when projects or ideas lay fallow. Given time, solutions will come.

I have the tendency to get wedded to my words, the flow and sound of them. If anything changes in the rhythm of the sentences, it sends me into a panic. But with the passage of time, I was not so attached to what I had written, making it easier to kill my darlings and go for clarity.

Conclusion: writing can be improved by resting your work and coming back to it with fresh eyes. It doesn’t have to sit years. But give it a few weeks or months, whatever it takes to read it as a reader, not as the author. Your brainchild deserves the extra time and attention!

For more ideas on supercharging your writing, see Creativity: Supercharge Your Writing Part I and Creativity: Supercharge Your Writing Part II.