Clarity

I'm back to work.  Back to work writing, that is.

Sometimes, real life intervenes.  Sometimes, you can't ignore the signs anymore, and you find yourself drawn in an unexpected direction.  That's what happened about a week and a half ago, when, after my partner, Chris, had bugged me for six years to get a job done in the house, I finally decided to do it.  Problem is, that job led to another one, which led to another one, and…well, you see where this is going. 

I didn't think so at the time–in fact, I was resentful of it–but taking a break away from my writing was a blessing.  I'd been working so long and so hard on the feedback I'd received from my beta reader–on how to improve a difficult and lacking Chapter One–that all I wanted to do was get it over with, so I could resume edits on Chapter Sixteen (or wherever I was at the time I received the feedback from my beta reader).  But that wasn't the right attitude at all.  Why rush through something, and probably do a bad job, just to get it done?  What I needed to do was take a break, as it turns out, not just from Chapter One, but from writing altogether.  Get out there, do something different, give myself some breathing space.    

Yesterday, I returned to Chapter One, Scene Two for about an hour and a half.  I still had a few jobs to do around the house, and that's all the time I had to give my writing.  But today (Thursday), I was back to my usual routine.  And, on both days, despite having worked on Chapter One, Scene Two for weeks, looking at it again felt new, like I hadn't worked on it before.   Like it was someone else's writing, which is exactly what you want when you're editing.

And, what's more, I not only saw the problems I identified before, but also I knew what to do to improve them.  Do you know how many times, before I took a break, I looked at those pieces and had no idea what to do with them?  Do you know how frustrating that was?  Yesterday and today, I felt no frustration at all.  Rather, I felt refreshed.  And I have no doubt what I did with my work as a result was a hell of a lot better than it would have been if I hadn't taken a break, and if I'd continued to struggle when the answers weren't there for me yet.

Don't be scared to take a break from your writing.  Don't be scared to live a little life outside of your story.  It'll all be waiting for you when you get back.  Chances are, you'll be eager to get back.  And you'll see your work in a whole new way.