Your Nagging Inner Editor

Speaking of the Editor Within, it can be annoyingly intrusive when you’re writing. It especially doesn’t understand the concept of a first draft. That’s the time you want to be putting ideas down, not fluffing and buffing the prose.

The problem with tinkering as you go is that you lose the creative flow. It’s hard enough to get into it to begin with, much less having to struggle back into that mind set after tweaking every sentence. So we need to stay with it while the ideas pour forth, saving our editing for the end of the article or chapter.

However, subduing the Nag isn’t easy. Most of us recoil from awkward sentences, particularly our own, and have a tough time ignoring them. The trick is to circle anything you see needs work, without thinking about how to fix it, then keep going with the creative flow. At first, you’ll have to fight the urge to make the correction on the spot. You want all of your writing to be pretty – immediately. But gradually you’ll become comfortable with the circle-that-means-later technique.

One caveat here: sometimes the pause to polish a newly written sentence is actually an exercise in procrastination. Stalling happens. But it’s just one more reason to save the editing for later.

For the first draft, dedicate yourself to pushing the words out until they start to tumble forth freely without interruption. Create now ~ tweak later.

~ Linda