Have you ever been so engrossed in a project that it’s hard to see the forest for the trees? Maybe you’re overwhelmed with responsibilities at work or with children on the home front.
A writer’s life can be like that sometimes. Somewhere near the middle of a book, no matter how good the outline, the task can suddenly appear overwhelming, even impossible.
I feel like I’ve become mired at such a stage these past couple of weeks as I slowly push a number of writing/publishing projects forward. Am I trying to do too much? Too little? Am I even doing the right things? These are the kind of questions we all begin to ask ourselves sometimes.
Humans have something in common with hawks and other raptors. Our eyes are our dominant sensory organs. Like humans, hawks possess binocular vision, so that the visual fields of each eye overlap. But a hawk’s eyes are much larger in proportion to its head than ours. The hawk’s eyes also have a much longer focal length, a large pupil and curved cornea, which gives the bird much higher visual acuity, or the ability to distinguish fine detail at a distance. Each eye acts in similar fashion to a telescope.
When hunting, my Harris hawk and I work as partners. He follows along from tree to tree above me while I—and whoever else might occasionally be with me, dogs, etc.—attempt to flush game for the hawk to chase. Deep into winter, as more rodents and rabbits go to ground, the hunt becomes more challenging. As the brush grows thick and the tall, dry grass obscures my view, I’ve learned to pay close attention to where the hawk is looking at any particular moment and begin to follow his cues. Why? Because the hawk sees. The hawk’s vision, when it comes to spotting our objective, his next meal, is vastly superior to mine.
The larger lesson for me in all this is that when I find myself bogged down with details in any project, especially when it comes to my writing, I need to find a way to return to my original vision for the project to begin to “see” my way through the woods.
After seven books, at least I recognize the experience, and know I will eventually push through, but it doesn’t make the process any easier. Vision drives everything: where I’ve been, where I’m going, and where I hope to be.
What has you bogged down today? What obstacles are you facing? How is your “visual acuity?” Maybe you, too, need to find a way to refocus, to return to your original vision in order to see the way ahead.
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