Since posting here a few weeks ago about the challenges of revising my fourth manuscript, I’ve gotten a deadline extension and a new sense of perspective. While some writers work best with clocks ticking and whips cracking, I’m not one of them. I need room to stretch out, to let the characters run wild, to let the story unfold in ways that my brain simply isn’t capable of producing on short notice.
Now that I’ve got a little bit of breathing room, I’m fascinated by the way my imagination has risen to the occasion. I can sit down at the keyboard and allow my mind to go quiet, reaching into that deep place I was afraid I’d lost access to. Sometimes the result is as simple as expanding a two-word description into a sentence or a paragraph, permitting myself to see and feel the landscape through my characters’ eyes. Sometimes it’s the ability to see the story from a whole new point of view—another narrator’s, or a different place in time. [Read more…]