Blizzards: What it Means For You in Your Writing

This morning, as I was taking the grand kids to school I met up with a blizzard! Snow starting blowing sideways (still is after an hour). You should have seen me trying to leave the parking lot!

Anyway, here I am in my nice cozy house, hoping that the streets somehow get cleared before I have to pick up my grand daughter at around noon and my grandson at almost four. I don't have the best car. Let's just say it's of an older generation, and though the tires are fairly new, they aren't snow tires :)
The good news is that the snow storm is providing us with much needed water, and some nice ideas for my blog post this morning.

It's hard to see in a snow blizzard isn't it? And hopefully you drive a little slower, and keep a bit more attention on the road when it does. I was thinking this morning as the side windows fogged up (I was trying to keep the front windshield defogged) how interesting and a bit irritating it was to open and close the windows so that I could see clearly enough to turn.

It's also hard to see through a book or story you've lived with for awhile. The problem with this sort of seeing is that it might be an invisible blizzard, an invisible fog. The only way you can see that there's really a problem is by having someone else read your work.

Consider your reader as one standing outside in the sun. It's summer for them and they can see all kinds of mistakes in your manuscript because they haven't been living with it like you have. Besides, the sky is bright. For all intents and purposes, consider your reader as if they are on vacation, the clarity of life open to their view because all of the stress has been left at home.

Not so for you. You aren't on vacation and know almost all of the words of your book by heart. And that's the trouble. Perhaps you are seeing through rose colored glasses now and are totally missing what's really written.

It's kind of funny to think about, but perhaps the best vacation you might take right now is one away from your manuscript. Don't look at it for at least two weeks. Don't even peek. Let your editor, your beta readers, whomever you have chosen to read your work, read it. And don't hover, please don't hover. Take a break.

You deserve it.