In forty years of making my living as a freelance writer, one of the best tricks I’ve learned is to step away from what I’m writing.
It might be for a moment, and hour, or a day, but coming back to the project—or even the paragraph—with fresh eyes helps me write more productively and efficiently. It also makes the writing more fun and, I think, better.
WHEN TO STEP
When I catch myself going over and over a sentence, paragraph, or chapter, and start to feel like a hamster on a wheel, it’s time to step away. At some point, the confusion starts to build and feed on itself. I get more and more muddled, try harder, and get more irritated with myself. No good can come of continuing that process, so I step away.
Another good time to step away is when the “Download Complete” sign starts flashing in my mind. Often when I write, it’s as if information is downloading from Wherever onto the page. Each packet of information requires a certain amount of energy to download. It doesn’t have to do with the number of words or the amount of time I spend with them. It could be fifteen minutes, an hour, or several hours of writing, but when that packet has downloaded, my mind goes blank. I just don’t have any more to put into that particular project at that moment. Any more time that I spend sitting at the computer only produces back pain. No more information will come until I’ve stepped away.
I also step away whenever I’ve finished a project, whether it’s a blog post, a chapter, or a book. When I come back, I always see something that I didn’t see before I stepped away—something that very much needs to be fixed.
WHERE TO STEP
Stepping away doesn’t necessarily mean going to bed and pulling the covers over my head. And it doesn’t necessarily mean staying away for more than five minutes.
For me, stepping away just means shifting gears. I might stay at my desk and work on another writing project. I might wash the breakfast dishes, or walk around the block, or clean the bathroom, or call a friend, or make a business call, or do some research.
I rarely step away for more than ten minutes—just enough to shift my attention, change gears, use a different part of my brain, and clear my head so that I see the writing from a new perspective when I come back to it.
WHEN TO COME BACK
The point of stepping away is not to avoid the writing, but to reenergize myself to do it. I know it’s time to come back when I start wondering how that particular piece of writing is doing, out there by itself without me. Very often, a solution or “fix” will come to me when I’ve stepped away to vacuum, or to take a shower or to walk. Whenever my attention meanders naturally back to the writing project, I see a solution, or I come up against the deadline for returning that I’ve set so that I’ll finish the project, it’s time to open that file again and look at it with fresh eyes.
The solution is usually more simple than I could have imagined. I’d just gotten bolloxed up in my own thoughts before I stepped away. When I look at the paragraph newly, the “fix” is obvious.
Don’t be afraid to step away, but be sure to come back. Stepping away isn’t a way to avoid the challenge; it’s a way to meet it and move forward.