Living in the White Space
By Liz Michalski | July 29, 2015 |
photo by Jinx!
As writers, we tend to focus so much on the words we sometimes forget it’s the white space on the page that makes them visible. Without that expanse, the words would disappear. It’s the same thing with life — struggling to write, to get published, can become our only focus, but it’s the experience of living — the stuff that we too often fail to make time for in our quest for the perfect novel — that makes our writing worth reading.
I’m not saying that you have to keep a strict schedule, or should only devote so many hours a week to your craft. But a balance, in which you fully engage in other activities without obsessing about writing, editors, agents, query letters, and the publishing world in general, will deepen your life, which in turn can deepen your writing.
So how do we create that ‘white space’ — that contrast to the writing life? I have a few suggestions.
Step away from electronics. No, really — I’m saying again what you’ve heard a hundred times before, but is still true. At our house, we define electronics as anything that has a screen, so no phone, computer, tablet, or television. (Read WU mama Therese Walsh’s posts on the perils of multitasking if you need to be convinced why.)
This is hard for me. I have two children who I am certain will fall into dire peril the second they cannot reach me. Plus, as someone who works from home, the internet functions as my ‘virtual cooler’ where I can take a break and see what my peeps are up to. But when I found myself checking Facebook while on vacation in an area I’d purposely picked because it has no cell reception, I knew I had a problem.
Solutions I’ve found include leaving the phone in a glove compartment or at home when my family is all together, handing it over to my husband to hold so I”m not tempted to check, or being guilted into putting it down by my teenager. (She’s available for hire. Cheap.) I’m also trying to close my laptop when I’m done working at the end of the day as a signal that internet time is now over, too.
Ditching the passive media opens up my time and my brain cells to all kinds of other activities. Which brings me to:
Try something new. Anything. It doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. It just has to be an activity you haven’t tried before. You may love it and find a new hobby with a whole new vocabulary and skill set (fencing with my kids). Or it may be a complete disaster (bread baking). Either way, you’ll have expanded your brain cells and enriched your life.
Scare yourself. Ride a zip line. Go down a water slide. Do the roller coaster at the park and scream the entire time. Walk past the big dog without flinching. Tell someone how you feel. Whatever you choose, it should make your heart pound.
Travel. To far flung places with exotic foods and languages. Or to the ethnic grocery store you pass every day on your way to work. The point is to break out of your rut and expose yourself to new people, new thoughts, new ideas.
[pullquote]The point is to break out of your rut and expose yourself to new people, new thoughts, new ideas.[/pullquote]
(Following someone new on Facebook doesn’t count.) You may find an idea for your next character. You may make a friend. You may discover you cannot live without rose ice cream. The point is, you will discover something.
Explore nature. Take a hike. Put up a bird feeder and sit near it for half an hour. Plant a garden with plants native to your area. Observe how it changes with the seasons, how different animals and insects use different parts of the plant. Learn the names of the birds and their calls. Avoid snakes.
Volunteer. Find a nursing home, a school, a food pantry, a community organization. Spend an hour or two helping someone with no connection to you. (This always makes me realize we are all connected.)
The point of all of these activities isn’t to make your writing better. It’s to get you out of your head and deeper into your life. To make you feel your emotions, strongly and authentically. To provide a contrast to those words on the page. So that when you do return to them, you have something interesting to say.
Your turn, my WU friends. Do you find it hard to find a balance between writing and the rest of life? Do you have any suggestions to share?
[coffee]
Liz Michalski’s (she/her) second novel, Darling Girl, was published in 2022 by Dutton. Her first novel, Evenfall, was published by Berkley Books (Penguin). Liz has been a reporter, an editor, and a freelance writer. In her previous life, she wrangled with ill-tempered horses and oversized show dogs. These days she’s downsized to one husband, two children and a medium-sized mutt.
Hello Liz.
Thank you for your post on a subject that has vexed me for years: technology’s effect on creativity. Everything you describe in your own life–both amusing and troubling–underscores the size and scope of what’s taking place. I think old people like me are the only ones able to fully experience the incredible degree to which information retrieval/dissemination instruments have crowded out other objects of conscious attention.
I recently came to a point of capitulation: the ship has sailed, I decided. The Pied Piper (now a hand-held device) has led everyone down a path to somewhere no one has ever been. I am on a small hill, waving goodbye, feeling a strange mix of loss and relief. I wish them well, and regret not being able to go with them. But I’ve decided to stay where I am, watching as they head off, each member in the whole long, trudging crowd staring down into one or both hands.
Let’s keep working on Therese Walsh to write the book she should write on all this–and thanks again for your essay.
Barry, I love the imagery you use, although I find it chilling as well. I don’t think it’s as dire as all that, though — at least a handful of my kids’ peers regularly eschew electronic devices for books, phone calls, and old-fashioned conversations.
Thanks for this post Liz. I try not to use my computer or phone when I’m around the family. (Of course, my nose in a Sudoku puzzle isn’t much better, but I’m working on that!) I usually write when I am by myself so my family doesn’t have to share me with my computer. But of course with a family, and full time “day” job, the writing time is severely limited. I just make sure I do a little each day – I figure I’ll eventually get there.
Thanks for reading, K.L. I feel your pain — my kids are on summer break right now — but a little bit every day (or every week!) adds up. Hang in there!
Telling myself to “take a hike” should be easy, living here by a lake. But the lure of my work and my connection to others on the screen is hypnotic, addictive. In my white space life addictions are not healthy.
I had another thought as you started talking about living in the white space… our readers are living in their white space, too. Meaning, they are absorbing our words and creating their own mental pictures and internal emotions because of or in spite of our hard-wrung words. That’s where my brain went with the concept of white space today!
Mia, I envy your lakeside situation! Sounds lovely. And I love your take on the term white space — the idea that our words can create a sanctuary for readers is inspiring.
Thank you for a posting that makes sense, that provides sanity to writing, especially to those of us writing while working other jobs. It’s the “other jobs” and “other life” that makes me want to write.
Lynn, it’s all that experience in your other job and other life that will make your words worth reading. Good luck.
Balance is definitely called for in today’s world. It is so easy to obsess on whatever area has our attention at the time, be it writing, war, famine, children, or even (gulp) marketing.
I am retired and feel like the writing world is zipping past me at an unfathomable speed. Even if I become a prolific writer, it seems my dream of “making it big” in the writing world is impossible to achieve this late in my life. Therefore, I have spent countless hours hunched over my computer writing, writing, writing, to the exclusion of all other interests.
The world’s umbilical attachment to electronics has caused me to pull back and see the truth of this. Is there anyplace where you don’t see someone staring down at their hand? My granddaughter, I’m sure, thinks her phone is a natural appendage that grew along with her need to communicate with someone, anyone, everyone.
So I have pulled back. I have allowed myself to remember what I used to do for pleasure. Before my creative focus zeroed in on writing, I used to do a lot of handwork–knit, crochet, needlepoint, sewing, etc. Now I spend some down time with my husband (yes, in front of the TV, but that’s his choice) most evenings and I have embroidered, sewn and crocheted to my heart’s delight. It has rekindled my love of creativity and, I believe, made my writing freer. In a few weeks my best friend and I are taking a 3-day vacation just to get away from it all. I hope to leave my computer at home. Maybe. But I will definitely focus on my friend’s eyes as we reconnect instead of a zombie screen. Balance. It’s my new mantra.
Linda, I feel the world is zipping by too, and I’m not retired! A Waldorf school that my kids went to for preschool really stressed handicrafts as a way of connecting the mind and body. I’m not crafty at all, but I found it very soothing. Your hobbies sound perfect for freeing your writing.
I guess I don’t understand. No electronics–no screen? Doesn’t that take us back to hammer and chisel on rock, cave art, petroglyphs, pen and ink, and the like? Sand painting? Semaphore? Telegraph keys?
What have I missed?
Okay, Jim, did my son put you up to this???? You sound just like him. : )
I am the mean mom — I regularly declare device free days, and I take them away in the summer to a place with no internet. They have to paint rocks, tie-dye T-shirts, catch insects, write, and enjoy all the same activities I did in the prehistoric ages. I tell them it builds character.
You make such an important point. Love the suggestions (except doing something scary… I will never ride another roller coaster!).
I recently went down an enormous water slide, M.E., and to my kids’ chagrin I screamed the entire way. I think they heard me in Texas, but it was awfully fun. Hope you find something equally scary to challenge you!
You are singing my song–and it’s not just a song for writers, but for everyone. I am delighted to walk away from the computer and the phone at the end of the day. That’s reading time, the best time and if something lights me up while reading, I rely on pen and paper, my favorite way to store ideas. Thanks for this post.
I’m so glad it resonated with you, Beth! Thanks for reading!
Liz,
I love “living in the white space” as a reference to getting out there in real life, participating. I’ve been living in too much white space (outside demands) and am anxious to get back into the words again. But yes, a balance. All words and no space makes Mike a dull boy. :)
Hoping you can return to the words soon, Mike. I still remember the story you read at the Unboxed conference — it blew me away.
I think I really do experience life most of the time, but have been contemplating my lack of pushing the physical fear envelope these days. I say “physical”, because I think I challenge myself in other ways by taking on new career challenges that scare me. But I was a daredevil when I was younger and I don’t want to think that age has mellowed me to the point where fear of the unknown overrides my desire to experience the thrill.
I’ll never forget a writing conference from years ago, where I attended a seminar whose focus was murder mystery/thriller writing. DEA agents set up a mock scenario with pop up bad guys and innocent people. Seminar participants ran the course and had split seconds to make a choice between shooting and holding fire. It was nerve wracking, even in a simulation, and I ended up shooting innocent people! It taught me about adrenaline, fear and split second life or death decisions in a way I could not have just imagined.
We are all familiar with “write what you know” as one part of the writing equation. “Write what you have researched thoroughly” is also valid and valuable. But in my experience, nothing can replace knowing what the experience feels like or how you would react under the circumstances, to be able to apply these feelings and reactions to your writing. They may be very different from what you imagined.
That sounds like an amazing seminar — I can imagine how fast your heart was pounding. We play laser tag here, and although it’s all in fun, I’ve shot my own team mate more than once. : (
Any chance sky diving is on the agenda????? : ) That would definitely create strong emotions!
Yes! Skydiving is definitely on my radar. I didn’t want to add that to an already long comment. I imagine laser tag would get the heart racing too, but safe and a lot of fun at the same time.
I got all caught up in me, but I meant to say that I loved your post! Great advice.
Great, pithy post Liz.
If we don’t live–meaning, out there–how can we expect to have much to say to those who read: living, breathing, suffering, inquisitive beings. After all, speaking clearly and deeply about experience that we all share is what writers offer and what pulls readers the most. I find driving an ambulance puts most everything into a healthy perspective.
The addiction to screens is stunning when you consider the ubiquitous aspect of this technology is barely twenty years old. As a new grandpa who has to skype his daughter, I see the four month old’s eyes lock on the screen as if it were water to a desert traveler. When her mom turns the little one’s head away, she cranes hard to find out what that phenomenon is and where it went. So there is more at work than entertainment. Something on the cellular level, perhaps. Research will follow.
On a lessor part of your wisdom, I’m afraid you may have jinxed people on baking bread. There are no disasters in bread baking, nothing on the level of apocalypse. In fact unless you add engine oil etc. (seek help, if this is you) you can eat whatever it is that comes out of the oven. Not knowing any better, my first try I used nutritional yeast. Read: zero rise. It was edible, but made lousy sandwiches. Everyone will do better than this. (Coming from a man who has since baked at least 10,000 loaves.) May all our writing projects rise and be consumed!
Tom, I’m always in awe of your job – I don’t know how you do it. You experience so many things that are hard to bear.
As for the bread — my kids and I made 10 loaves. Nine were really bad, but the last one was great, so we quit while we were ahead. A very nice older Italian friend gave me a lesson, but it didn’t stick. So now I’m just happy when I visit him and go home with two loaves. : )
Love the white space analogy. I’ve also found space works to make powerful story, that one incredibly right word is equal to a dozen adequate words, and frees up a readers space to stretch their imaginative wings. Space to balance is everything. Thanks for the lovely, thought provoking post.
Yes, Bernadette, one right word is worth so many ‘almost right’ ones! That’s what I’m struggling with right now — giving the reader enough space to imagine the story on their own. Thanks for reading.
I took a long break after publishing my first novel before starting the present one because I knew how hard it was going to be for me to come up for air and really experience the “white space” once I started in again. I do agree, difficult as it may be, it’s important to schedule both writing and white space in order to keep those new ideas coming. I’m doing a better job of balancing this time around, but it definitely isn’t easy!
I always feel as if I’m missing something — when I’m with the kids, lots of times I have story ideas I’m afraid will vanish. And when I’m writing, I’m missing my family. I applaud your choice to take a break after your first book.
Good advice.
I have a history — as a teen, when I fell in love with writing, I fled reality in favour of fiction.
In the push to build a career, I am tempted to do that again. I mean, who needs to live, right?
Wrong.
Thank you for the reminder.
Fiction writing or reading is so addictive, Leanne. It’s hard to know when to stop. I wish you success AND balance — good luck!
Thanks for the white space reminder . Rose ice cream is my favorite too.
Liz,
This is the best way to put it. I need my writing to feel like me. And I need my life to feel normal.
Because I work at the computer, all of my hobbies are analogue – many of them physical that get me in my body. I’m into yoga, dance, scrapbooking, art journalling — stuff that gets me out of writer-brain mode.
I was teaching a mini-retreat and one of the writers said something interesting that speaks to this issue. She’d rated her commitment to her writing a “9” on a scale form 1 to 10. She said the reason it was not a 10 was because that would be an overcommitment. Her 10 was “her being in this world.”
I thought this was beautifully put!
Thanks for your lovely and very important reminder.
Cynthia