Something or Other & their good friend It

What to do with vague words in your work

Photo by Rachel Clark on Unsplash

And get into focus.

I’m in the phase of scrutinizing a final draft. Working on a novel is much like climbing a mountain: you anticipate, you prep, you arrive at the bottom ready to go. There are those first moments (weeks) of setting out on the path, and that first hour of being OUT of the city and IN the trees, smelling all the wonder… then muscles start to ache.

But you go on, and there are times of relief, a bit of level path. Then up again. Maybe some challenging bit of rock-and-root-puzzle where you’re really having to put in a different type of effort (and wishing you didn’t have a huge pack weighing on you), then back to Up… and so on. Eventually you start to see the peak—I’m at that point now. (Going back down is the publishing process.)

I’m seeing all sorts of weaknesses that I wasn’t seeing before. And that’s such a blessed thing—not to have seen them before. Novel-writing is layer after layer. And some of it is pain—and there’s a response to pain that sets in at points and cuts off some layers so you can focus only on what is hand, what you must.

If you do any hiking, you know that after a long while a sort of rhythm takes over, and you’re just moving. That’s a wonderful equivalent to the mental space necessary to crank out earlier drafts.

I’m past that point. I’m seeing things that need to be seen. Some of what I’m seeing could be called “lazy” writing. But really, it’s that ‘rhythm writing,’ when you can’t stop the flow, and you know—vaguely—that it’s not your best, but you need to keep moving if you’re ever going to get anywhere near the top.

I’m talking about the place-holders of “something” and “it.”

*Note: you may not be in this phase of a novel, but this scrutiny is something you might do for any WIP—a short story or nonfiction—on a day of “block” even. Do NOT get caught up in this work if you’re in flow! Save this work for slowed times.