Back in the Adirondacks - Getting Settled in

We arrived in the North Country on Sunday, under Thurman's sunshiny blue skies. By Monday I was already knee-deep in small town fun, although still surrounded by unpacked totes, bags and boxes. There is so much to do, and I feel as though I'm slogging around in circles in quicksand. Slowly, slowly there is progress.

And there are bright spots! One of the best sparkled during a discussion with another writer on that perennial topic of squelching the inner critic when we write. I had just had several conversations with Robin, a Gainesville writer, on that very topic, as we commiserated about how tempting it is to polish every new sentence, fix every comma...and then loop back and rewrite the whole paragraph. Perish the thought that someone might see our typos and think we are illiterate!

We know there is much to be gained by resisting that editing impulse and just forging ahead with the story -- "vomiting words onto the page," as friend Shari calls it. (Shari is really good that way.)

So when e-acquaintance Jen said that she had found a neat solution to the first draft self-conscious nitpickiness I can be so guilty of, my ears shot up. She shared a trick that her friend Laurie had learned from SARK, author of "Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper: Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories, and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It." SARK says to give your internal editor a job, to keep her busy so she'll leave you alone to create.

Here's how Jen describes her way of utilizing the idea:
Have given my inner critic a job (per advice from another literary friend). Have sent her to count calories so that she is too busy to jam me up! It is pretty funny to visualize her with calculator in hand, donning an old-fashioned draftsman's green visor, working furiously at tracking the calories and reporting them on a yellow legal pad.

I'm still grinning over that one. I love the image, and I love the sharing among members of the writing community. I owe so much to so many.

Maybe tomorrow I'll find the top of my desk.