Inner Editor

[posingsomdomite]

I was wondering what techniques or advice you all a have for shutting up your inner editor aka the voice that makes you read over every word and line a billion times. Personally, I find waking up really early in the morning helps, but I'd like to be able to write productively at any time.

[Venom]

I cannot shut them up, so I have to make every sentence count.

[leo9]

I still re-read books I wrote twenty years ago and think "I shouldn't have used that word." I can waste hours going over what I already wrote, but fortunately, if the Muse is on the job, she will take me by the ear and drag me to the foot of the text to write the next bit.

A certain amount of revision is good: usually what I first wrote needs a lot of trimming and polishing. (And cutting down, I use RAH's method, write everything that comes into your head and then throw out half of it on the rewrite.) As for when to stop, deadlines are your friend. Eventually, if all else fails, you can tell the editor "yes, it probably would be better for another rewrite, but there's no time."

[Emeyuchi]

I'm not a writer, but I work with a lot of writers on and off. A good trick I know at least three of the people I work with use is a "screen". Just taping something like paper over your screen, like a shield you can slide on and off. Put it on when you start typing, take it off when you're finished and then proofread for spelling errors and such. Out of sight out of mind. Helps some.

[leo9]

I'm not a writer, but I work with a lot of writers on and off. A good trick I know at least three of the people I work with use is a "screen". Just taping something like paper over your screen, like a shield you can slide on and off. Put it on when you start typing, take it off when you're finished and then proofread for spelling errors and such. Out of sight out of mind. Helps some.

Proofread for errors? I wouldn't be able to read the resulting letter salad at all!

[posingsomdomite]

Proofread for errors? I wouldn't be able to read the resulting letter salad at all!

Actually, I tried this and it didn't got that bad.

[lucy]

Deadlines do work. However, since I've got to meet loads of them at work (and, much worse, have to remind others of their deadlines, a task which often involves a lot of ass-kicking and knife-to-the-throat-situations over the phone) I try to avoid them at all costs when writing my own stories/books.
But usually I don't have much of a problem with "letting go". I'm aware that everything I write could be written differently, certainly better, too, but there's just that much editing and revising I'm willing to do. Most of the times I just want it to be finished because I've got another couple dozens of ideas to write about.

Life's plenty long enough to drink the odd bottle of bad wine, but not long enough to write everything in my head. So I better hurry hp