Keeping a Clear Head

Famil­iar­i­ty breeds con­tempt appears to be an old con­cept. The notion appar­ent­ly makes its way into print via Geof­frey Chaucer’s Can­ter­bury Tales (1390 or thereabout).

Indeed, I think it’s a par­tic­u­lar prob­lem for writ­ers: How does one keep going over one’s work—day after day, per­haps year after year—yet look at your work objec­tive­ly, with a clear head (and eyes), and keep a crit­i­cal per­spec­tive? At the same time, you do want sub­jec­tive (emo­tion­al) engage­ment. For a writer like me, who writes almost every day, this is a problem.

In last week’s essay, I’ve sug­gest­ed that doing nothing—that is walk­ing away from that par­tic­u­lar work—helps. Return­ing after an inter­val of time can bring some objec­tiv­i­ty. I achieve some of this by alter­nat­ing between projects.

Anoth­er major help is read­ing you work aloud—pen in hand. Amaz­ing how read­ing aloud alters one’s sense of work. (Robert Frost: “The ear is the best read­er.”) I recall learn­ing that Madeleine L’En­gle (A Wrin­kle in Time) had her hus­band (an accom­plished actor) read her new work aloud to her. I con­fess, I find it hard to lis­ten to oth­er peo­ple read­ing my writing.

The first per­son I read my books to is usu­al­ly my wife, a good lis­ten­er with artic­u­late crit­i­cal skills. Get­ting some­one else to read your work, and talk about it, gives you a dif­fer­ent perspective.

I also go into favorite schools—with whom I’ve estab­lished a relationship—and read a new book (going in, say, once a week) pen­cil in hand.

Find a school which focus­es on kids who have prob­lems read­ing. Used to being read to, these young peo­ple are won­der­ful lis­ten­ers, are real­ly smart, and give great feed­back. I’ve done so for years,

There some oth­er tricks.

When work­ing on a com­put­er you can:

1. Change the font.
2. Change the size of the font.
3. Change the layout.
4. Change the screen color.

These changes will alter the way the man­u­script looks, and force you to see the text in new ways.

Final­ly: Sub­mit your work to a pub­lish­er. As Samuel John­son wrote: “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fort­night, it con­cen­trates his mind wonderfully.”