A Writing Tip by Cathy Adams
PRUNE YOUR WRITING HABITS
After winter, new life emerges, fully cognizant of the mistakes of the previous season. That’s a distinct advantage—to carry the slate of the past with the freedom to erase the parts that no longer serve us.
To make use of that mental metaphor in my writing, I consider my writing process over the past months of snow and bleak, overcast days, and I commit myself to dropping whatever bad habit I let creep into my daily routine. (There’s always at least one.) Then I commit to a new habit (or an old one I’ve abandoned) that either increases my productivity or deepens my creativity.
Lately, I’ve slipped into a habit of “revision silence,” and that is the habit I’m letting go of now. In its place, I’ve returned full circle to reading my prose aloud, a technique I learned years ago and did faithfully for a while. At the beginning of a day’s writing, reading aloud what I completed the previous day allows me to hear it in a way that silent reading does not. Silent reading allows the brain to project intentions over reality. That’s not helpful. Reading aloud pushes the rhythm and tone forward in such a way that you’re forced to hear what you truly wrote. Sometimes that sound is garish, but it’s always helpful.
In honor of winter’s close, I encourage you to find a bad writing habit, one that is no longer helping you, and put it to death. Then, birth a new, more productive writing practice in honor of spring’s arrival.
Cathy Adams is the author of the novel A Body’s Just as Dead as well as numerous short stories published in journals such as The Saturday Evening Post and Arcturus. She teaches at the American University in Bulgaria.
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