Tag Archives: internal editor

The Sad Tale of a Downward Spiral

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Without realising it, I abandoned my writing system a while ago. It was a gradual process and I didn’t really notice. First the internal editor took over, trying to produce a finished piece without all the drafts I used to write. Then, as that happened, my enthusiasm started to fail, I wrote less and as a result I sparked fewer ideas, which, in turn, made me write less. And that was the story of my downward spiral.

I have only made 12 submissions this year, including two months with nothing submitted. I kept telling myself that I was gathering myself for a better quality of writing but all that did was encourage the internal editor and things just dried up.

The problem was simmering away, as I started to talk about quality over quantity, but really took hold when I was selected for the Contemporary Haibun 18 anthology. It features poetry “gleaned from the best practitioners from around the world” according to the publisher’s blurb.

Naturally, I was pleased to be selected. Then, as usual, I worried. I didn’t, as usual (Imposter Syndrome and all that) worry that I was there under false pretences. This time I worried that I wouldn’t be good enough to get back in next year. This was where the internal editor escaped from his box and started to squeeze the life out of me. At that point I should have relaxed and just carried on a normal, but I’m not that smart. It’s all part of the writing process, I suppose, and next time I meet with a degree of success I must allow for it.

The truth is that I was happy to be anthologised and grateful to be picked. Just because I’m not picked again doesn’t mean I will have become a bad writer. And I have plenty of years left to try again. I’m now going back to my old writing process. Instead of trying to achieve perfection on the first draft I’m going to start throwing 500 words at the page before chipping away to see what lies within. It has worked for sculptors through history and used to work for me. It will work again.

My new motto as I move forwards – Work hard. Write lots. Prune. Inspiration is for cissies.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to writing. I have a masterpiece waiting to be released.

Orange Parker Pen

Running out of Steam

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At the moment, I feel a bit empty and devoid of inspiration (see my last post).. After days of worry and effort I decided not to submit anything this month because I didn’t have much to show poeope, and what I did have didn’t seem very good. There’s no law that says I have to submit every month, so I relaxed. For a few hours I felt much more creative, but after that the difficulties returned.

Unfortunately, I’ve been doing less and less over the last couple of years, particularly the last few months. In fact, this is the second time in four months I have decided not to submit anything. At first I put it down to Covid and the infection I had a month before Covid (I always forget the actual name, but I managed to struggle through that.

The current problem is, I think, that I am trying too hard. I’m worried that I need to up the quality and it is making it harder to write. Plus, as I worry about quality, my internal editor kicks in and things I would have considered acceptable now seem sub-standard.

It’s like the pottery students.

I’m sure I’ve told this one before, so sorry if you remember it. As I get older I ramble more and repeat myself. It’s an internet story, so it probably isn’t true. Even if it is true I doubt they would be able to do it these days.

Anyway . . .

A lecturer told half his pottery students that their marks for the year wo0uld be based on the weight of pottery they produced. No mention of quality, subject or technique – just weight. He told the other half that their marks would be based on them making one superb pot.

Guess which group produced the highest quality pot? That’s right, the ones who had been told they would be awarded marks based on weight.

It seems they set to, producing pots in a relaxed manner and, concentrating on quantity, became good potters because of they gained a lot of experience. The other group, trying for one perfect pot, never managed to work to the full extent of their abilities because they over-thought it.

I used to work by throwing words onto paper and then shaping what I ended up with. I always had work to submit and it seemed to be OK as plenty was published. Now that I try to write better poetry, with more technique and complexity, I am finding it much harder and nothing much seems to measure up.

Tomorrow I am going to clear out a lot of my work in progress and then I’m going back to my old ways – lots of words and less self-criticism. Let’s see what happens.

Still Struggling

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Much of writing a slideshow presentation involves the same difficulty as writing a poem, with the extra difficulty of facts and photos being thrown in.

I’ve successfully procrastinated for eight months now, and followed that up with evasion, displacement activity and sloth over the last few months. That moved on to struggling to write in the last couple of weeks as I just couldn’t get into it. That is quite like poetry, though the timescale is different. I did managed to produce some photos, facts and slides but I couldn’t get the narrative going and my internal editor has seen me start and restart the presentation a dozen times. In the end I decided to put my head down and start writing. Eventually, it came right.

I now have a suitable opening and quite a lot of other bits and pieces. I also have 24 hours and 13 minutes before I am supposed to turn up to the meeting (I decided to take Monday off work – I could do with a break and I need the time to finish.

The plan is to blast through the rest of the slides tonight and establish the order and narrative. I will check the timing and write a list of things that still need doing. I will finalise it tomorrow morning before I take and load any extra photographs I need, check facts and write the prompts. I don’t need prompts as such, because it’s all on screen or in my head, but there are always a few last minute facts to note. Mainly though, I do it as practice and memory training and, to be honest, in case the presentation doesn’t work and I have to revert to the old-fashioned method of talking at a crowd.

That, I think, is about it. I will load this post and get back to work.

Shakespeare Medallion by Paul Vincze

Restrospective

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I’ve had a bad few days struggling with time management, fluency and my internal editor. I am now just going to sit down and write. This is post 2,300 so I really should have got the hang of it by now.

All that time ago, I intended to advertise the work of Quercus Community and to educate the world about aspects of nature. Eight hundred thousand words later it looks like I ended up writing about poetry and Cup a Soup. that was not how I envisaged the blog developing. Nor was it how I imagined my life unfolding.

Later…

Well, I nearly sat down and wrote. What actually happened was that Julia rang up wanting a lift back from the laundrette, we went to lunch at KFC, dropped in at the garden centre and had a drive round.  I can’t quite remember, but I think thi is our first outing since the autumn. Unless you count going to work as an outing. Even my social life isn’t so bad that I need to consider going to work as an outing. Not quite.

While we were out I noted the varieties of tree and flower blooming. I’m a poet, I need to know these things. The crocuses are gone, the daffodils are in full flower and the primroses just beginning to show. We did see a good clump of something that looked a lot like purple crocuses, but which turned out to be some sort of dead nettle – probably ground ivy but I’m a bit patchy on identifying dead nettles. They are all edible, so it doesn’t really matter if you are just wanting something to sprinkle on a salad.

With that number of words I could have written eight books. That would be more impressive as an answer when asked what I wrote. “Eight books”, even if they are about Cup a Soup , is a much more impressive answer than “a blog”. And even “a blog” is a more impressive answer than “haibun”. At least people have heard of blogs.

We’ve just had tea and banana cake. We are trying to make the cake last.

There we go, it’s nonsense, but at least it’s fluent nonsense.

I’m now feeling the urge to write about Cup a Soup.

Thoughts on writing

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I missed my  deadline last night, just fell asleep in front of the TV as I drank a cup of tea and woke up minutes after midnight. I loaded the photos, posted, and found that although I was annoyed at missing the cut, it didn’t really matter.

I might be finding it hard to cut down on blogging, but I am, at least, managing to keep up the writing challenge I have set myself. One haibun essay, ten haiku and a poem a day. I did try writing a longer blog post on this subject but it quickly became dull, as mentioned here, so it remains in draft. After the 100 Day Challenge I’m only thinking of doing this for a month. A hundred days was gruelling.

The general idea is that I will use the practice challenge to gain more fluidity in writing and to build up ideas. If anything good comes out of it that will be a bonus.The haibun essays are generally usable, and some of the haiku aren’t too bad but the poems are mainly rubbish. With practice this may change.

I seem to remember from rugby training that it’s important to practice doing things perfectly, but with writing it’s slightly different as part of this is about overcoming the internal editor. There are a lot of ways to switch the internal editor off, and many posts. The one I’ve linked to there was at the top and was as good as any.

The best way I have found of switching of the internal editor is to write and keep writing, Don’t go back unless you spot a typo, and if you miss it don’y go back just because there’s a red squiggle in the text. You can do that later. I’ve just been back and fixed five typos in that paragraph. I’m not very accurate, but the inaccuracy doesn’t really affect the sense of the words.

I’ve often thought of writing a post and not sorting the typos. There are always some I miss anyway (I just re-read a post from four years ago and found a “their” where there should have been a “there”). I’m sure if I did that most of you would be able to read it OK. I’m told that as long as you have the first and last letters in place the brain will mostly sort out the rest.

Another thing I find is that the writing equipment affects the fluency of my writing. For haibun and poetry fountain pen is better than biro. Both are better than word processor.

Strangely, I can blog directly from the key board. In fact that’s the easiest way. Same with articles. It must be the way my brain works. Or doesn’t work.

A big stumbling block with my writing is the copying from longhand onto the computer. I really do not enjoy that bit, even though it isn’t really that onerous. It’s a few poems, not chunks of text. It’s not like actually doing any work.

Twenty Minutes

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I’m setting myself a target of twenty minutes for this post. If I limit it to that there will be several benefits.

One is that I will have to select a subject and get on with it.

Two, I’ll have to switch off my internal editor and just get the words down.

Both of these will be useful because I’ve been letting things slip recently and I need to keep active.

Three, I won’t be tempted to drift off and start playing games on the internet.

Four, I’ll be able to blog, do the washing up and have tea made before Julia gets home from the gym.

And now, having pressed a random button and closed everything down, I have even less time to write a post.

The big news is that I’ve had another acceptance. After five rejections in a row I was beginning to worry that I’d ridden my luck as far as it was going to take me. Now it’s beginning to look like hard work is paying off again and I may postpone my return to Limericks.

Not only have I broken the sequence but I’ve done it in record time. From submission to acceptance – four days. I know it was down to timing rather than writing skill but it’s still good to get the news that quickly.

I can hear they key in the lock, looks like she’s home early. This is generally a good thing, as I like the company, and feel that it’s OK to switch the heating on. Tonight it is a little too early for comfort, but I doubt that I’ll be in trouble as, let’s face it, she doesn’t expect much from me in terms of housework.

In fact, she doesn’t expect much from me at all. As I may have said before, the key to a happy marriage is a wife with low standards.

And with that thought, and 24 minutes elapsed, I’ll go and put the kettle on. We have chocolate cake too, though it’s slightly fire damaged from all the candles…

The picture is totally random – I’ve left the camera at work again, despite having photos to use. I tell you, I really am losing the plot.