#writetip
How many times have you heard or read that when you finish your first draft, and I mean a serious draft, that you should put your novel in a drawer for a couple of weeks?
I never understood this until recently. I had three readers commenting on my updated version of The Final Gate. While they were commenting, I decided to start work on my fourth novel, and leave The Final Gate alone.
Now that I am reviewing their comments and doing the final proofread, I finally get the importance of the advice.
I can see things I hadn’t seen before. Maybe it’s a passage of text that is too earnest, or maybe it’s narrative describing something I’ve already described. Without taking a break, I couldn’t see these things.
Even thought it’s hard to leave something alone that you are passionate about, I am now a believer in “Step Away From Your Novel.”
Creative Story Editors 
It always amazes me the things I pick up after I’ve gained a bit of distance from a manuscript!
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Me too. Getting away for a while is hard, but worth it.
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Good for you Kristina. It is amazing what we see when we take a step back. Not only with our writing, though that’s iminently important, but other aspects of our life as well.
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Good Morning Nancy. You are so right that this applies to our lives as well. If only I could remember that! We are back in Florida and had an easy Gulf Stream crossing.
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Kristina. You are so right and I’m so glad that you brought this subject up. It’s almost like having a fresh pair of eyes on it.
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That would be handy. I wish I could call pu a fresh pair at any time.
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Distance really helps me to be objective about what I’ve written. Once the words have had a chance to cool, I’m much more able to edit them as if they’d been written by someone other than myself.
That, and I have a lot of fun reading my stories once I’ve forgotten some of what I’ve written!
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