How to Distract Yourself From Trying to Impress

Do you find yourself writing descriptive passages meant to “wow” the reader? Later, do you find that such passages amount to nothing more than small talk?

Or maybe you’re just tired of your current revision process?

Writer Stefani Nellen stumbled on a method that has helped her attain needed distance to see her writing for what it really is—and to distract her from trying to impress:

A few months ago, I decided, as a kind of experiment, to translate a few chapters of one of my novels into German. … As I kept looking at the alien, almost-but-not-quite-normal German sentences that were supposed to be my words, I realized what I had done. By keeping my mind busy with translation issues (first from Idea to English, then from English to German), I had managed to distract myself from trying to impress. … While I struggled with the technical details, the story seized its chance to do its thing. 

Read more about Nellen’s experiment here, in the latest Glimmer Train bulletin. And don’t miss these other offerings this month from Glimmer Train:

The Story That Will Not Write Itself by Karen Brown
Writing the Unfamiliar: Incorporating Different Cultures and Lands into Your Fiction by Sybil Baker