Roadside Assistance from Maude

I have two writing secrets for you today. Play telephone to every writer you know.

Everyone has an internal editor. Mine was fashioned through years of wielding the red pen in the trenches of the fertile minds of our youth. I taught grammar gremlins and led writing workshops where I became the student's first editorial feedback. This internal editor, Maude, wields a sharp pointer and razor judgement and spouts, "you were an English teacher, for God's sake. Can't you do better than that?"

Over the years, I've heard many tricks to silence her. Believe me, I've tried all of them. Using ALL CAPS doesn't shut her up (that's supposed to work only with longhand writing). Even turning off the auto-edit feature in Word that produces those dreaded green grammar and red spelling error lines can't get past her shameful outcries.

Finally, I shut her off. As in punching the monitor's power button, black-out screen, nothing-for-her-to-comment-on kind of solution. In that initial draft, when she must be silenced completely and the gateway to true creativity means punching it far past the speed limit, the black screen becomes my empty canvas. Going back to fix anything is impossible. Sounds crazy, right? Almost like flying blind. But flying is the perfect metaphor for that discovery draft.

The second secret comes from Suzanne Brockman, and I suspect it is a secret many writers already know. She writes her entire story in a first-person point-of-view first draft, then converts it to third person in the revision stage. If you hate revisions like Maude, the task of converting POV can seem overwhelming, but the emotional payoff to deeper characters is more than worth it.

Two secrets. They may come out on the other end of the telephone game as "Maude pays off the punchy cop when she speeds through a black out" but I suspect you'll remember her as you're pulled to the side of the road on your next first draft.

What's your best trick for turning off your internal editor?