Yzabel / August 28, 2005

Taming the Inner Editor

Or, better, getting rid of it for a time, because the beast has been plaguing me for quite some time now. I simply didn’t have a name to give to it yet.As I was reading No Plot? No Problem!, I realized that often, I have a serious problem with my “inner editor”—this little voice that pushes me to take every text back again and again, even though it’s not finished, and polish it until it is “perfect”. Which in theory would be nice and useful, if only working this way didn’t mean taking my sweet, sweet time to finish something. Of course, it can never be perfect enough to my eyes, right?Oddly enough, I never have any problems with it when it comes to technical writing. Technical writing flows fast. Technical writing knows by itself where it’s supposed to head to. However, fiction is a whole other matter, and while I’m supposed to write well in both “genres”, it’d be really great if I could for once leave the Editor behind, and fully focus on writing. I can always edit later on, when it’s finished. Starting to do it while I’m still writing is just like shooting my own foot, preventing me from going further.Read More

Yzabel / August 14, 2005

Considering NaNoWriMo

50,000 words in one month of writing: doable or not? An impossible task to set myself to, or a very attainable goal?I say it’s a perfectly attainable goal. When I try to watch more closely my writing rythm, I realize that in one month, it’s really nothing impossible (to be honest, I’ve already done it more than once). Sure, I don’t do that every day, and regularly enough I’ll scrap out entire weeks of work because I’m not satisfied with it anymore. Regardless, NaNoWriMo, given my current cadence, is totally doable.I’m very tempted to try, just to see how writing with a deadline of this kind works for me. It’s nothing professional, it won’t bring me any prize or money, but I really couldn’t care more. When it comes to creative writing, I’ve never had to do with deadlines so far: technical documents is the only field I do have them, and these don’t demand the same kind of focus. Both “genres” are way too different from each other to be comparable.I don’t know which degree of involvment I’ll have in it, whether I’ll take an active part in their forums and the likes. I may however post excerpts and works-in-progress here. None of this will start before November, in any case. I like this game, and I’ll stick to its rules.nanowrimo, writing