My Inner Editor

A long time ago in a galaxy that seems very far away now, I got a master's degree in theology. One of my courses was called Addiction and the Dependent Personality. What that had to do with theology, I'm still not entirely certain, but it was a good course and I read a book for it about "my inner child."

I remember my own inner child pretty well. After all, I grew up with her and I liked her a lot. We played in the mud together, rode horses together, read books together, dreamed about Jess Harper together. The person I don't remember ever having been introduced to before was my "inner editor."

Sadly, she exists.

She's the one who is picking apart Spence and the scotch bottle and the park bench right now. She is the one who is going back and adding labels to the scotch bottle and litter to the park. She's letting Spence gaze, then she's telling him gazes aren't right, he should be glancing instead. She makes his cell phone ring. Then she sticks it back in his pocket and deletes entire conversations.

I don't like her very much. Neither does Spence. I want to shut her in a box and tell her I'll let her out, say, about 45000 words from now. What Spence wants to do with her involves the box, some cement and the Hudson River. I'm tempted to let him.

That's the thing about writing. You write -- and the minute you do, some demon living inside your left brain starts to edit.

"You can't say that," she says.

"I just did," you reply, but not with a great deal of confidence because, hey, these people are new to you and you don't know for sure what they're going to do yet.

"Well, it's not a good idea," she tells you with that lofty know-it-all tone in her voice. "You should change it."

So you do. You shouldn't. You know you shouldn't. But you do. And you go on. And then you stop. And then you change it back.

Because the fact is, you can say that. You can say any damn thing you please. This is a sh*tty first draft, remember? So anything goes.

Who knows what any of these characters are going to do yet? You're just getting to know them. They're telling you their story. You're learning who they are and what they've done and what they're capable of doing. And you -- and they -- aren't necessarily going to get it right the first time. Or the tenth. Or, God help you, even the thirtieth.

You just have to write (unless you're Elizabeth George and you've figured it all out and you're writing because you know what's going to happen. Oh, God, I want to be Elizabeth George when I grow up!)

But for now, I just have to write, discover, learn. Muddle. But just try telling that to the "inner editor."

Well, I am trying. I've told her to get lost. I've told her that Spence and his scotch bottle stay -- for now -- and if I find out later that they don't do more for the book than they're doing now, they're history. But for the moment, they stick around. She's not editing them out. I might need them -- especially the scotch bottle -- later on. So there.

And if she doesn't like it, well, too bad. I know a hero with a box and a bag of cement I can introduce her to.

Spence is smiling at the thought. So am I.