Thursday, August 22, 2013

Inner Editor

Lately a lot of my writing time has been at night, a time, I discovered, that is not when I'm at my writing best. I'm tired, and my inner editor prods me to the point where I am paralyzed and make little progress.

 In the morning, on the other hand, the reverse is true. My muse is at her best, and IE is thankfully quiet.

So I'm setting my alarm 45 minutes earlier so I can have time to write in the morning.

What tricks to you use to overcome yours? Share please.

Critical Thinking

Don't worry your meanderings
are unworthy of notice,
should simply be forgotten,
have been said before,
are trite,
and, most of all,
can never be altered
once written.


Stomp on the Momser
telling you to put down your pen,
your pencil,
your keyboard,
and let yourself go,
take pen to page
and scribble down whatever,
no editing allowed.


Brainstorm,
write at random,
list current favorite words,
least liked movie titles,
your best friend,
the plot of last night's television show,
your dream of trying on
someone else's shoes,


You can go back
to pick the ones you like,
cross out the duds,
add brilliant notions,
and substitute
for the weak words.
But you can't edit
what you don't write.
Enhanced by Zemanta

3 comments:

  1. Dear Margaret,
    Setting your alarm to get up 45 minutes earlier than you usually do seems like a great plan. I hope it works for you.
    Thanks for sharing your ideas.

    Never Give Up
    Joan Y. Edwards

    ReplyDelete
  2. Margaret, knowing when you're most productive is so important. It's great that you realized the morning works best for you. I'm not sure which time of day works best for me, but if I know if I'm overtired I shouldn't bother trying to write. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree, Margaret, that we must have a way of making ourselves accountable to productivity however works for us. Cute poem, btw.

    ReplyDelete