Possibly unwanted advice
Nov. 16th, 2008 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maderrI have a lot of people on my flist doing nano. I think this is cool, especially since I am no longer doing nano. I always had fun with it.
However, I see people already struggling for a reason they do not need to be struggling. It's perhaps one of the hardest things to learn in writing. Maybe I'm being pretentious, or snotty, or whatever. I'm no widely published author with droves of fans who can speak as a real authority--but I do know this much:
Stop editing. Stop looking back, stop erasing and rewriting what you don't like. Just stop. Don't worry about what is already written. Write, keep going foward, and do not look back. This is one of the worst things you can do. Never go back over stuff unless you need to remember some detail or exactly the way a conversation went. Do not reread, and decide you do not like it, and write it over. That's the purpose of the editing stage. If you are in the writing stage, you are not in the editing stage, so stop editing. Believe me, it's easier to change stuff later than to constantly rework as you go. That will discourage you more than you realize. Jot notes, or whatever works for you, and make those changes after the story is done.
So knock it off, and keep writing. Write now, change later.
My two cents, I apologize if it comes off in some negative or offensive fashion.
However, I see people already struggling for a reason they do not need to be struggling. It's perhaps one of the hardest things to learn in writing. Maybe I'm being pretentious, or snotty, or whatever. I'm no widely published author with droves of fans who can speak as a real authority--but I do know this much:
Stop editing. Stop looking back, stop erasing and rewriting what you don't like. Just stop. Don't worry about what is already written. Write, keep going foward, and do not look back. This is one of the worst things you can do. Never go back over stuff unless you need to remember some detail or exactly the way a conversation went. Do not reread, and decide you do not like it, and write it over. That's the purpose of the editing stage. If you are in the writing stage, you are not in the editing stage, so stop editing. Believe me, it's easier to change stuff later than to constantly rework as you go. That will discourage you more than you realize. Jot notes, or whatever works for you, and make those changes after the story is done.
So knock it off, and keep writing. Write now, change later.
My two cents, I apologize if it comes off in some negative or offensive fashion.
