Unblock

Last week, I wrote about my theory of the three writer's roles that occupy my head: Creator, Revisor, and Copyeditor. I think when people talk about "being inspired" and waiting for their Muse to visit, or in my case, burst through the drywall. For all her bluster and bravado, my Muse only gets to work with the Creator, the shy one, the sprinter. He's capable of turning out a lot of words in very little time, as long as he's not being pestered about quality.

Quality, and self-judgement, and the urge to self-correct is so strong, and I personally find it destructive when the Creator is out to work. Writing is like sailing across a foggy lake, with only the occasional glimpse of a light to steer by on the opposite shore. It's more important that the vessel get there than how efficient or elegant the journey. Only after, when the fog is cleared, do the others get to participate.

I know some writers edit as they go, often putting polish on scenes or whole chapters before tackling the next one. Firstly, I think they must be athletically-minded to change roles so relatively rapidly. Maybe they're writing one day and editing the next, but to me (and only for me) that feels too close together in time. The Creator hasn't moved on in a day, or week, and maybe a month. My minimum time between write-and-revise is a month, though practically it's more like three months of trunk-time for any draft. The act of pulling those words from the fog and advancing my path towards the light takes me a while to get over. At a day or a week, it's too close. I can remember writing the words down, possibly remember how I was feeling or where I was that day, even.

My Revisor-mode works best when I've forgotten the original work. I used to leave little notes forward for myself, like [[expand on this section here]] but even then,  by the time I actually got to revisions, I'd wonder what I had in mind, or why I needed the expansion. The Creator doesn't get to vote on the next step, as much as the Revisor doesn't get input on the first. I've tried to stop leaving such notes, or at least dropping them off to the side in a "Notes" panel in Scrivener ("Princess Gladiola has secret lives as a ninja-assassin and a short-order noodle chef, both of which leave her exhausted and muzzy during the day.") Maybe the Revisor can do something with that, maybe not, but at least it's off to the side where it's hurting no-one.

I think one big struggle to being creative-on-the-spot, or the dreaded and potentially mythical Writer's Block is trying to satisfy both the Creator and Revisor at the same time. But it's like attempting to occupy opposite ends of a see-saw. The Creator creates, and forms the words and the shapes and the structures. Meanwhile, the Revisor removes and excises the saggy sentences and meandering dialogue and interest-killing character choreography. Doing both at once? No wonder writers feel blocked.