Welcome to 40 Days of 3 Questions!
For the next few weeks, meet here every morning with a notebook or document to answer three questions about writing, about your status quo as a writer, or about the writing life. You can answer briefly and go about your day, or you can use this as a warm up exercise before your regular writing schedule. Whatever works for you, works for me.
Day 20 Questions
- Do you have an internal editor?
- Is this editor a critic or a champion?
- Can you shut off the critic and listen to the champion?
You may post answers in comments or keep your thoughts private–your choice!
And here is today’s pretty picture:
Ramona DeFelice Long 
I have a very harsh inner editor. The champion side only seems to show up after I’ve let the story simmer for a while and take another look. You know. “OH! That isn’t so bad after all!”
LikeLiked by 1 person
I certainly do have an internal editor and she is mostly critical. I have been listening to and reading the words of Gabrielle Bernstein and Wayne Dyer and am learning to silence this critic by raising my self esteem. Miss Critical gets much less air time these days!
LikeLiked by 1 person
1.) Do you have an internal editor? Yes. She has a very loud voice.
2.) Is this editor a critic or a champion? Very much a ‘Mikey’ critic. She hates everything.
3.) Can you shut off the critic and listen to the champion? She sleeps very late, so I do most of my first-draft writing in the early mornings.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of course I do! Often it’s the voices of previous external editing by folks like you, Ramona, and Sherry Harris, guiding me. (“Is this character a throw away or is he going to continue? If he continues, we need to know what he looks like, she needs to think about him when they are apart, we need to SEE him.” Or “That’s awfully snarky. Robbie isn’t that snarky.”) Sure, when I write something clunky, the internal editor is a critic, but that’s fine – it needs to be fixed and I can see how. The champion comes partly through experience. Yes, I am bogged down in the middle. But I’ve been bogged down before and the only way to get to the end is to keep going. After 19 middles, my champion knows I can finish.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have a ferocious internal editor. I think all of us do, a voice that compares early drafts by an inexperienced author to the best literature we’ve ever read. The only way to keep going is to ignore it. Like Annette, my champion shows up later in the process when the book comes back for editing and copy-editing, when sometimes I think, “That’s not bad.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Do you have an internal editor? Oh, yes.
Is this editor a critic or a champion? Very critical. The champion is reserved. She only shows up after a piece has been sitting in the drawer or in a computer file for a couple of weeks.
Can you shut off the critic and listen to the champion? I have been trying to shut off the critic by saying things like, “You are good at picking through what I’ve written. Let me get lots of words down and then you can go at them all to find better ones. You are important. You have a place in my writing. I couldn’t have written what I have without you.” Things like that. Doing that is new, but it seems to help, so far anyway. The champion doesn’t rush into anything. She wants to ponder and cogitate over what is written. I think she’s in a coma when I am doing first writing on anything.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Do you have an internal editor? Oh yes. Don’t we all?
Is this editor a critic or a champion? Depends on the stage of writing. Early on, she’s a critic. “Oh come on. You can do better than a description like that.” Later on, she’s more encouraging. “Wow, that’s a really great scene.”
Can you shut off the critic and listen to the champion? I can usually shut the critic in a closet during the rough draft, or send her away with a bribe of chocolate when it’s her turn during the revision stage.
LikeLike
1. Do you have an internal editor?
I sure do.
2. Is this editor a critic or a champion?
She’s a critic, but not a very good one. She learns not to use the words “little” and “very.” Then she goes on and lets me use “really” all over the place.
3. Can you shut off the critic and listen to the champion?
I haven’t mastered that yet. I’ve tried chocolate and Scotch, but she apparently can’t be bribed.
LikeLike