Tag: tips

Writer Life Lesson #4: Write Now, Edit Later

Writing is hard work. On the good days, it’s like playing god in your own little universe, on the bad days, it’s like babysitting spawn from hell. Most of the time it all depends on the words we put (or don’t put) on the page. Writing should come easy. Put word after word until you have a sentence, then a paragraph, then a page, and so on and so on until you have a novel. HA! If only it was that easy!

Sometimes, we make writing harder than it has to be. We struggle with what words to put down on the page, what mood we want them to set, and what order we want them in. Sometimes, we put words down, and cross them out, or backspace until the page is blank yet again. Some days, it’s a wonder we get words down at all.

So how do we rectify this? Easy: Write Now, Edit Later

This lesson comes at the perfect time. The first session of Camp NaNoWriMo starts in April, and writing first and leaving the editing for later is what Camp NaNo is all about. The point of Camp NaNo, and its parent site NaNoWriMo is “literary abandon”. I take this literally to mean “write whatever comes to mind on that page and edit when that piece is done”.

So enough about Camp NaNo (There will be a post about that later this month), let’s talk about how to turn off the “inner editor” and just write.

Set a Goal- Well, look who’s talking about goals again! Laugh all you want, roll your eyes, whatever. Setting a goal works. What works best when having goals is setting one that almost seems out of reach. For some of us, that’s 2000 words and for others that’s 100. No judgement here, some days I can’t even get 5 words down, let alone 2000. So why a goal that seems just out of reach? If the goal is too easy, there is no challenge. If the goal is too hard, you will easily get discouraged. So finding the middle ground will motivate, but not discourage you in your writing endeavors.

Write as Much as You Can- Writing and writing skills, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, is a muscle. If you write as much as you can, you build that muscle and writing becomes easier, and you learn that your editor can take a vacation and you don’t have to doubt the words on the page. It might be difficult, but with time it will get easier.

When you start writing and just writing, saving the editing for later, you get more writing done and you start to finish more projects. When you write without the editor looming over your shoulder, you can enjoy your writing again, and it doesn’t have to be such a chore.Isn’t that what we all want from writing?

How do you silence your inner editor and write now?

Writer Life Lesson #1: Write It Down

Being a writer means writing, but sometimes writing doesn’t come as easy as we might like. Sometimes the ideas don’t come flowing as a raging waterfall splashing the exact words we want on the page. Sometimes they show up when we have no way of remembering. Sometimes the ideas keep us up at night, or catch us right between sleep and awake and the next morning we don’t remember them.

The best way to combat all of these problems is to write it down!

If the ideas don’t come as easy as we would like, or if the ideas are there, but we’re scared of the words, terrified with the fear that the words will be the worst ever, the only solution is to write through it. It doesn’t matter if the words are “I don’t know what to write” or “Hitler was such a jackass”. It doesn’t matter if they connect to what you were writing or not, just write your first thought, as soon as you pick up that pen or open that document. If the first words you write suck, or are outrageous, the pressure to find the right words will be lessened. If after that first thought, you’re still stuck, keep doing it until you find the right words. You can always go back and edit it (or laugh about it later).

If you have the exact opposite problem, and get ideas when you can’t write them down or keep them long enough to remember them, find a mental image wherever you are, something you’ll remember like an orange penguin eating purple pancakes, or imagine the thought over and over and over again as many times as you can until you get the chance to write it down. If you have a pen, but no paper, write it on your hand or wrist or wherever it will stay until you can write it down somewhere permanently. If the same think occurs at night, and you don’t or can’t turn on a light, I recommend a small whiteboard, or something you can grab quickly in the dark and jot down the idea before it flies away.

White board above my bed. Several ideas live there

So whether the ideas won’t come, or they won’t stop coming: Write it down. No matter how dumb it seems at the time, you never know when you can recycle it later, or turn it into something else.

After all, some of the craziest ideas make the best stories.

How do you keep track of your ideas?