Writing and Editing are Two Distinct Tasks, so Stop Multitasking

A letter to all writers and NaNoWriMo participants.

Writing 50,000 words is a lot. Writing 50,000 words in a month seems like even more. Writing 1,667 words in a day also seems big. Memories of cranking out 500 page essays for school may be daunting. But you’ve done it before and you can do it again. The important thing is to write. This is what NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) encourages you to do.

Writing and editing are different activities — you’ll go faster if you only do one at a time. This takes some getting used to. Let go and trust the process. When you see or do these things, stop. Examples include:

• Misspelling a word
• Wrong verb tense
• Incorrect punctuation

Those things are all part of editing. Your word processor will highlight all of those things and you can fix them later. Let your creative words flow. Get your thoughts on the page and come back when you hit writer’s block.

Some thoughts can be hard to let go. Acknowledge them by writing them down. Write them within the body of your text as you go along. Don’t get hung up switching to comment mode or switching to a notes document. You can move that around later.