dimension change

Last night I re-read a big magazine piece I’m working on, but this time I read it on my phone. (Normally I print it out and read it aloud, the better to hear its cadences, etc.) I meant to just skim it, keep my head in the game, but the screen size change helped me see the ideas better. And I know it’s frowned upon to read your phone before bed, but this time it was to my advantage: I started getting sleepy, entered that twilight state where my mind was relaxed, not judging, and then ended up sitting up half a dozen times in a row as I thought of changes. A short night’s rest, but a happier countenance facing down the page again today.

My film editor husband does this too — sometimes watches his cuts-in-process on the exercise bike screen at night, just to shake up his vantage. He told me that he heard one of the editors on the Titanic film say that near the end of the project, when he just couldn’t see it anymore, he’d watch it in a mirror. All the images are reversed, which was just strange enough to alert him to jarring transitions or whatever. I’ll remember this: a dimension change to energize the process.