Find Oomph in Creative Editing!

Thoughtful comments filled the box following my post on why creativity shuts down if you stop to edit as you write. Want to find some excitement in editing? Joanna Young approaches editing creatively and offers refreshing tips to put a punch in your editing. Here're brilliant approaches to try...

Robyn, thanks once again for exploring some of the brain science behind this common complaint. Fascinating stuff as usual, though I'm curious - do you literally change hats? Or put an editor's hat on?

I think I might distinguish between the editor and the critic. Editing can actually be quite a creative task, just different from getting the words down. It can be enormously satisfying cutting, shaving and polishing so the best words show off in all their glory.

Or to put it another way, to cut the excess words and allow the natural rhythm of the piece to flow - to find the punch, the oomph, the unstoppable force which will leave your readers reeling

The critic I think of as the person who asks: is this a good idea? should it be written like this? now? or saved for later. Think on, think hard.

When things go skewiff is when we let the critic talk to us before we've written anything, because he (why does the critic appear as a he? well he does in my mind!)is likely to anticipate our very worst, mediocre, dull boring writing... and stop us writing anything

This gets worse when we compare our feeble efforts (not yet written) to the demands and expectations of our audience. It'll never be good enough, people will laugh... that is, we anticipate criticism

The way I get round this is to focus on my purpose. A positive purpose like: to express a powerful idea, to share some important news about brain research, to inspire someone, to let people know about the fantastic work we've been doing. Something that makes me feel positive, enthusiastic, and motivated. I keep focused on that, then let the words flow.

It's the most effective way I know to keep the critic at bay and let the writing job be done.

Gosh, that was a long comment, almost a post. I've been meaning to write a post on this, so might use this as the raw material for it. Thanks!

Joanna, thanks for taking your time to let us see editing from a whole new perspective. Writers who go skewiff might learn even more by asking purposful questions before putting pencil to paper...I know that they'd gain much from your series on how to ask purposeful questions. As you say it's a matter of knowing and being excited about our purpose. There's the crux of the issue.

I'll now approach writing and editing tasks with much more verve. What about you folks? Anyone who loves to play with words can learn to be a playful editor! After all, your brain has amazing plasticity so that we can develop new ways of doing tasks!

Do readers have additional ideas to edit more creatively?