Sometimes, when you’re writing…
I remember learning how when you’re putting together a poster, the ‘clear space’ around the words and images can be as important as the message.
Sometimes, when you’re writing, it can be like that, too.
Not so much in terms of what you put on the page, but in the pauses between putting words on the page.
“Er, waddya mean?” you may say.
What I mean is that sometimes I may write a section of a book, whether a chapter or a sequence of chapters (or even, in fact, a whole book) and then press pause for a while. Whether deliberate or unintentional, the time away from the work-in-progress allows ideas to percolate away, often ‘below the radar’ (to mix my metaphors—whether gloriously or ingloriously I will leave you to decide.)
The result of the pause, a little like the graphic ‘clear space’, is that it allows you to see the words on the page more clearly, even picking up themes and subtext you may not have previously realised were there, or suddenly seeing how you could highlight or develop a character so much more powerfully…
Of course, that may also mean rewriting, but that, dear readers, almost goes without saying.
However it doesn’t always follow. Sometimes the return the manuscript allows you to see that a passage or sequence you weren’t sure about actually works very well. And that, as you can no doubt imagine, is quite astonishingly wonderful. 😉