Be Still My Editor #mfrwauthor

 

Welcome to another week of the Marketing for Romance Writers 2018 challenge. Each week we're supposed to write a thoughtful post on the given topic. Hope you'll stop by each Friday for our thoughts on life, writing, and our books.  Today's topic relates to our writing craft--What is the Worst Writing Advice You've Received?

I could use the advice to go with publishers A, B, and C as the worst advice. That qualifies because they closed down either shortly before a contract was issued or a book released.

Instead I've chosen the commonly accepted maxim to "still the inner editor." We're told when writing not to correct typos or rearrange text. Just to dump our words as a steady stream of consciousness.

Now, authors have as many ways to create as there are books. I'm a plotter. My outlines are done more at the keyboard than paper and pen unless a computer is not available. The translation of scene notes, full scenes and dialog is usually done with paper and pen. That first draft is messy. The inner editor will number sentences and paragraphs to reflect a better order when the actual typing is done.

As writers we're told not to even correct spelling as we type. For me, that aspect of turning off the inner editor doesn't make sense. It takes less time to hit the backspace key once or twice to correct a typo or re-spell a word than to come back with a mouse, highlight the text, then still do the correction. Of course, if correcting while you type disrupts your train of thought that is a different story.

Another reason why I don't silence my inner editor when I'm writing is that it reduces the risk of a typo or some stupid grammar thing slipping through the crack during the editorial phase. With less things to catch in a clean draft, there is less potential for the error to make it into the final manuscript.

 ~till next time, be sure to visit the other posts in the challenge.