Scribblings

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in a decade of professional writing and editing is that writing and editing are two separate processes. Seems obvious, right?

The problem is, we — authors — don’t like that. We write two words, change the first one, write another three, change that first one again, and plod along, two and three words an hour. Well, maybe more than that, but you get the idea. This is a bad thing(TM).

It’s much more effective to write some set amount of material. Just write without self-consciousness. Think about the words, puzzle over them, but for the most part, once they’re on the page, just keep moving. You may write a page or a chapter or 1,500 words or 3,000 words. I tend to do all my new writing in a few hours, somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 words each day, depending on how things are going.

Then — and only then — allow yourself to read and edit. It’s better to do this the next day, and better still to do it the next week or month. Time helps. But you’ll never get anywhere if you’re trying to produce perfect sentences one word at a time. Produce them by throwing them on the page, and then refining them.

Trust me on this one, or better yet, try me. You’ll find a lot more is on your page when you stop.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 7:01 am and is filed under Self-Editing, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.