My inner editor is writhing in agony, I hear calls, reasonable calls, from his cage over the pool of Ill tempered mutant sea bass.
“You’re on the right track.” He says, and I agree with him, I’ve always been susceptible to flattery.
“Just let me out and I’ll help you polish that.” He cringes at my next sentence “Son, its ok to hit delete, trust me I’ve deleted plenty of things.” My next sentence stutters along as I grit my teeth at the unpolished diamond in the rough I’m working on.
“Let’s be honest you and I.” He has my attention I want this diamond hacked out of the jungle of misspelled words and poor grammar. (Not that he would help that much on that we are math people him and I.) “You can do those words AND a little bittie bit of revision. Your word count will be a little lower today but they will be good words, words you like and you know you want to work the “Rip the secrets from their flesh” line in there somewhere.” He’s right I do want to work it in. I don’t’ know where. I don’t know how, yet, but at some point today it’s going to worm its way in.
“That’s why you need me, you aren’t writing horror and that’s the third group of empire scouts that you have croaked this chapter just let me out and we can plant some flowers over their graves, maybe some nice Azaela’s.” I’m tempted to listen to him, to press the release button, to let that little apple polisher go to town. It would be foolishness not to listen to the elders, to the ones who have gone before. Get the words in then do the editing in December. My editor cries gnashing his teeth on the bars.
“Come on your not even trying now, just let me out your only hurting yourself.” He wails. I stubbornly continue on finding another gem to be polished in December, I flesh it out a bit, digging my fingers into the rock so I’ll remember where it was, remember to let my editor polish it to his heart’s content, just not now.
So how does your editor mess with you?
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15,239 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 12 10
"You've written at least seven drafts of this chapter already, and I really thought I'd seen the worst you could do. I was wrong."
That's pretty much the only line mine needs to say, regarding Only Child. I have a file full of false-starts for this novel, and my editor is convinced that this is the shoddiest yet.
It hurts more because she's right. ;_;
----------http://www.nanowrimo.org/NanowrimoUtils/MyMonth/95590-goal=200000-pc-day...
Ideal Goal: 200k
Minimum Goal: finish Only Child
30,890 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 12 24
/hands out earplugs and gags made from used kitchen towels.
Do not listen to the editors! They are the Emperor Palpatine to your Luke Skywalker.
Gag them firmly! Put the earplugs in your ears, waaaay deep in there. Your families can learn sign language; it's okay.
/hands out rope.
Now tie the editors' hands between their legs and tie their legs together, in case they already know ASL or a variant.
Avaunt, me hearties! There be words ahead!
----------Trebuchet Club member
--------
It's the end of November and you're still twitching? Come over to www.ToBoldlyNano.com ; we've got what you crave.
24,700 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 13 59
My inner editor has learned to love Nano! I get to write a terrible first draft, and she gets to go spend a month with her editor friends, heckling all of you. Teehee. :D
I've written nearly 2000 words of crap today, and I'm loving every second of it.
----------Euphemia (2008)
Heir of Solland (2009)
Need to waste some time this Nano? Check out Subeta!
5,278 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 14 17
If your inner editor tells you to go back and add more content, then by all means listen. Otherwise, second-guessing yourself is getting in the way of not guessing yourself and banging out words. Even if you feel you're stuck in a pothole of sucky words you just wrote, you are perpetually on the cusp of writing a daring dune buggy escape plan! Such is the beauty of writing.
15,014 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 15 01
Well My inner editor only comes out when I re-read what I wrote. Then I go back and start to make corrections in my typing, trying to see if things sound like i want them. Then I have to stop and focus back on what I was writing. She is very hard to ignore once I start going over what I wrote.
I have to get in the zone and stay there, cause once I get out She is right there waiting to pounce.
Anyone got an inner editor Chain Lock Uppy Device?
----------- What doesn't kill will probably make you wish you were dead -
31,438 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 18 53
What inner editor? I don't think I have one. Or he/she/it is much more crafty than I am...
----------15,239 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 19 07
Reporting back after an hour of editing:
Jesus, I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. I usually don't hear that sweet, soft song of editorial temptation. In fact, editing is generally slightly more painful than pulling teeth for me (and I'm fond of my teeth, mind you). That should have been my first warning: I've been assaulted by "this is TERRIBLE" since I first set finger to keyboard.
I've written a bajillion drafts of this first scene. I cannot begin to explain how different they've all been. The most recent one, which I wrote around six months ago, is far and away the winner in tone and quality. I've patched that into my current draft, and I'll continue to remove the ~4k it gives me from the wordcount. It gives me a tone to stick to, since my voice tends to wander terribly, and it solidifies my beginning.
After adopting this strategy, I allowed myself to go back and edit my first scene, so long as the editing added more words. I've just turned a 274-word "and then this happened, and then he went over here, and it looked like this," scene into a little over 1321 words of something that could feasibly be read by people other than me without inducing spontaneous bleeding in the reader's brain, unlike the previous version.
Needless to say, I will be continuing with this method when I see fit. As stated, I typically don't edit much simply because I can't force myself to do it without threats of bodily harm. But seeing this shaping into something tolerable before my eyes is a little bit intoxicating. I'm not going to be UltraEditor, but when I hear that siren song, I'm going to think about answering.
(As regards point of view, I've simply decided not to decide. When I need first person, I'll write in first person. When I need third person, I'll switch to that. I will not try to box the first draft into one PoV, because I get too caught up in the "but what if!"s of the matter. That sort of editing is for December.)
----------http://www.nanowrimo.org/NanowrimoUtils/MyMonth/95590-goal=200000-pc-day...
Ideal Goal: 200k
Minimum Goal: finish Only Child
32,001 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 19 52
I feel a tad bit like a hypocrite considering the writing method that I'm employing this year, but.....You must RESIST the call of the inner editor. If you must go back and read through, do NOT under any circumstance delete words. You wrote those words. Those words count for you bad or good. Highlight them, use the strikethrough feature, or attach a comment that says "Revisit in December.
Kalayna told me a story about her first nano....She had a character change gender in the middle of the book. She didn't go back and change the hes to shes...She continued as if she'd been writing the character as if she'd been female for the whole book. Last year, I had a section of my novel that wasn't working. I typed the words "This is crap. Starting over" and started the section over. The rewritten words were better, but I kept the old ones for word count. If you don't know what happens next, but do know what happens later in the story, skip to that part. Fill in the wholes later.
Again I say! Resist the call of the inner editor.
Vikki
----------Go Tigers!
36,797 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 08 35
Orphanator - RESIST! Don't give in! You can do it. But, clearly, your method of containing your inner editor is flawed. He does not seem to be nearly scared enough by the ill tempered mutant sea bass. I propose a distraction. Paint some random words on the scales of those sea bass. Then he will be so caught up in trying to train them to swim in complete sentences that he will leave you alone. If that doesn't work, I'm sure there's a flying monkey someone can lend you to torment him. Flying monkeys are great for that kind of thing.
Incandescent - The reason the "editing" is working is that's not your Inner Editor. Inner Editors do not expand scenes. They are minimalists by nature. You Muse is just granting you a clearer, more detailed glimpse of her vision, which is, strictly speaking, against the rules, so she could not just tell you that's what was going on. She had to be crafty about it and make it look like something else so you didn't both get into trouble and have a word-block curse thrown at you as punishment. This is a gift. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, MISTAKE THIS GIFT AS JUSTIFICATION TO RELEASE YOUR INNER EDITOR!!! That way madness lies. Leave her to her chains. I'm sure she's getting used to them by now, and they only chafe a little.
----------~Nikki
http://www.nlberger.com
NaNoWriMo 2006 - Aundroma I: Memories
NaNoWriMo 2007 - Aundroma II: Missions (won!) AND Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
NaNoWriMo 2008 - Aundroma III: Momentum (won!)
NaNoWriMo 2009 - Death Makes A Lousy Dinner Date
34,301 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 14 56
Mine says, "Just go back and read what you wrote today...Go back and read what you wrote yesterday to make sure it flows with what you wrote today...Go back and read the whole thing." It's very hard to resist, but I know I have to. If I go back and read over everything, I'll inevitably start editing. And as my novel gets longer, it will take hours to read it through from the beginning.
Today was especially rough. I have come down with a nasty cold, and my brain just isn't working well. I know that there's a lot that needs to be fixed in what I wrote today, but I am trying so hard to resist the urge to go back and change it.
----------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dianne
NaNoWriMo 2009 - Ignoring June
41,152 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 09 34
Apparently my inner editor is not on fire walking a plank into the waiting jaws of a shark. Oh no. My editor is trapped in a sugar-caffeine-ZOMG-brainsugarhigh coma for the entire month of
NaNoNovember. This actually makes it quite easy to discount any validity of his advice, because when the editor is saying things like "Yeah, and, like, you should totally make that word capitalized and OMG pixie stick squirrel tree sheepcow goes MOOOO!", well...It's just better if one moves forward. Insanity should never linger in one place for too long. Lest you infect the matrix.
/steals spoon
----------To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. --Robert Louis Stevenson
StarStones: NaNo Novel 2007
Eyewitness: NaNo Novel 2008
Broken Spark: NaNo Novel 2009