I’ve been thinking about the connective tissue between the fragments of writing I’ve generated over the years. How to stitch everything together in some sensible way when the world feels increasingly insensible? This anxiety might explain why I’m dragging my feet on finishing the book I’ve been endlessly rewriting, forever shuffling scenes and squinting at the possibilities.
This afternoon I came across an old interview with Michael Ondaatje:
“In that last editing stage, I am outside myself. I’m looking at it much more clinically and saying, okay, get out of this scene quicker. There’s that element of technique and dramatics and timing and ‘lighting’ in those last stages. Punctuation and paragraph. But I don’t at any point say, ‘What is this book really about?’ It’s unsaid. I worry instead that it’s cloudy over here, or the brambles need clearing.”
A good reminder that, at a certain point, writing requires you to stay outside of your head. Easier said than done. But I like this idea of thinking about writing in terms of lighting and landscape. Snap the shot and keep moving.
