When you write, do you edit as you go? So you write a couple sentences, then change your mind and and decide you want to say something else instead?
If so, it’s time to stop!
Because each time you stop to muck around with what you wrote, you’re breaking your train of thought, slowing yourself down and potentially wasting your time. After all, how often do you decide to just scrap that sentence or section later because it’s repetitive or doesn’t fit?
It’s far better to turn off your inner critic and keep going with the flow until you’ve finished a first draft, take a break and then edit because…
- Your writing will have more energy and momentum (so it’ll be easier and faster to read)
- You won’t risk losing the ideas you had by breaking your train of thought
- You won’t finish the first draft drained and frustrated about how long it took
- The editing will be faster and easier too–because you’ll come at it fresh and know what the entire picture looks like
In fact, forget writer’s block–your inner critic is your worst enemy when it comes to writing well and fast. Stop, start, stop, start–this isn’t a good way to do anything, much less write something
So how do you turn off that urge to keep tinkering with each sentence and keep moving forward with your draft?
Here are two tricks I’ve found that can help…
Highlighting. It only takes a second, but highlighting the word or section you’re concerned about to come back to later helps your brain relax and let go of it for the time being.
When you’re done writing, just look for your highlights. If you don’t have time to re-read the whole thing, at least you’ll know you fixed the trouble spots.
It still takes some discipline to go this route though. So, if you’re struggling to stay focused and on track, then the second, more drastic trick may be a better solution…
Invisible writing. (No lemon juice required!) Next time you’re struggling to turn off your inner critic, simply change the font in your word processing program to white. Yes, white. Then, start typing.
Voila…you’re much less tempted to edit what you can’t see! If you’re really hard core, you still may try to edit as you go occasionally (I’ve found myself counting spaces back to fix something at times) but you will dramatically reduce your editing and backtracking.
Warning–check occasionally to make sure your fingers are hitting the right keys . The good news is if you do somehow get off track, you can easily figure out which keys you meant to hit and do a search and replace. But, better to catch yourself sooner rather than later.
When you’re done, simply highlight the text and switch the font back to black.
Regardless of how you turn off your inner critic, it’s best to take a break and do something else before editing. Your brain will be sharper so the process will go faster and more smoothly.
And there you have it–two deceptively simple techniques that will help you write better and cut the time you spend overall on writing and each piece!
Great post. I like the advice you gave about taking a break, then editing. This only works if you have the time which is another tip in itself. Writers need to give themselves the proper time to write a post, article or whatever. There’s more pressure when under a time crunch and that’s when more mistakes are made and thoughts tend to get lost. We all have deadlines so stop waiting to the last minute to write or you won’t have time to take that break.