Just Write
Image from WCL (click)
As a sometime-editor, I have a tendency to pickiness. Well alright, so I’m obsessive about spelling, grammar and those other little cogs that make up a smoothly-functioning language machine. Unfortunately, this finicky approach extends to any form of writing, which means that I self-edit constantly.
If you travel across the landscape of writing blogs, you will almost certainly have passed those offering advice for people like me: “Just write”.
Now, quite apart from this making me think of the quintessential capitalist brand¹ and the wonderful parody poster that I can’t seem to find anywhere (“Just Vom It”), that particular advice has always stressed me.
“Just write,” they say. “Worry about the editing afterwards.”
But I’m psychotic about my grammar. I’m obsessive about my spelling. Syntax is better than chocolate. Vocabulary and punctuation are ice cream and fudge cake! How can I just write and not worry about what I’m putting on paper?
As chance would have it, this week has given me precisely that opportunity.
Back at the end of last year, I had the good fortune to find a great client. We’ll call him Mr. Reliable². Regular work, regular pay, a few too many urgent deadlines but always grateful for extra commitment – for what more could a freelancer ask?
Normally, I create web content and edit documents written by his other writer (and temporary people in an offshore team), but Mr. Reliable’s main producer has gone missing for Easter. Two weeks’ holiday, right in the middle of a project. Guess who gets to carry the baton?
So over the last few days I’ve had so much to produce on such a short deadline that I’ve been “just writing”. 36Mb of content arrives in an email and off I go. Like verbal diarrhoea, but coming out the ends of my fingers onto the keyboard.
Engage brain, connect direct to hands, press “Start”. Let the ideas free-fall through synapses, unhindered by reason. Forget rhyme, thyme, lemon and lime . Do not pass “Go”, get out of jail free, you sunk my battleship. Thank you very much, Elvis has now left the building.
Surprisingly for one such as myself, it’s been quite a successful experience: the content is finished, the client is happy and I just need to go back and edit.
Whodathunkit?
Have you tried “just writing” or are you an edit-as-you-go person?
¹ In my opinion Nike ranks roughly at the level of slave traders, drug dealers, terrorists and politicians. Slapping a brand on everything conceivable to make a buck and finding new and interesting ways to cut costs (cough, sweat shops, cough) while pretending you’re a lovely, friendly, care-about-your-sporting-anatomy shoe company disgusts me.
² Which, by the way, is also the name of an excellent Australian movie based on real events. Watch it. It’s definitely worth the time. Freelunch says so, and he’s right.
² if only it were available on DVD…
I seldom write more than two sentences at a time, and I can usually squeeze a typo or two and some bad grammar into them so “just writing” isn’t a problem for me
I believe in the wisdom of write with your story tellers hat on and then go back wearing your editors hat. However, believing doesn’t make it easy or even possible. A goal I will continue to strive for.
Freelunch: I know, especially since my VHS player just died. Bah, humbug!
Shack: *Great* to see you again! So I either need two hats… or two heads. Hmm. Maybe Zaphod can help me with the latter option…
Don’t limit yourself to two hats.
I prefer to wear three hats: planning, writing, editing. Usually editing for grammar and the other superficial issues are not much of a problem for me. But if it’s a larger document and I come up with something that should have been inserted a long time ago… that can be tricky.
Glad to hear that your writing career is going well. I gave up on the freelancing thing. Not getting paid for work was enough for me to write it off as a possibility.
Doing a full book, however, has a lot of challenges. First, you’ve got to write it. Then, there’s the illustrations. A part of the challenge there is getting your artists to follow your vision, so rough sketches are often a good way to offer a guide. Then, you’ve got to consider the layout – what text goes where, along with the pictures. There’s the front and rear cover. If you’re going to publish it yourself, then you’ve got to think about how to sell the bloody thing once it’s done. Writing a kid’s book I thought would be easy, but it’s easily the biggest challenge of my life. Thankfully, the mechanics of writing: spelling, punctuation, and syntax, are not issues for me.
So, that’s a lot of hats. But, congrats on the success of your freelance writing career. Would have been nice to see your payola blog kept up.
Interesting article. As English is not my first language for me it does work that first i just go and throw all my ideas on the canvas/paper/monitor and then go back and try to put them in an order that makes sense and then go back again and try to arrange it in a way that it looks like English language.
Ok It’s not that bad… Just going easy in the beginning and not stopping the creative flow with self-editing works for me. Although I will try out going slower and trying to write and edit at the same time.