Liz
Sheffield has been a writing student and editing client of mine over the last
few years. She is a blogger and freelance writer focused on the topics of parenting,
wellness and leadership. Her essays, articles and short fiction have been published
in national and regional publications, including
Brain, Child and Family Fun. Until recently, Liz spent more
than 11 years writing, editing and designing training materials for Starbucks. She
lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two young sons.
Please welcome Liz Sheffield
This year, when
I asked the young writers in the early weeks of my National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)
workshop to tell me what their inner editors say, the kids (ages 8 to 11)
didn’t hesitate to respond:
“You suck.”
“That’s no
good.”
“You can’t
spell.”
Ouch! Our
inner editors develop at such a young age.
These fifteen
students are part of the afterschool NaNoWriMo workshop I’m teaching at my
son’s elementary school. A few years ago, the Office of Letters and Light (OLL)
– the group that oversees NaNoWriMo for adults – created the Young Writers Program as well as a NaNoWriMo
curriculum for kids and youth. It’s the same concept (write a novel in a month)
but with a word count goal that is reasonable for each young writer.
September
and October are all about training. In our weekly lessons, we discuss topics
such as the inner editor, main characters, plot and setting . The goal is that
by November 1, these students will be able to write their novels in 30 days. In
order to succeed, I know from personal experience, the first step is to get
their inner editors out of the way.
“Next, we’re
going to draw these inner editors,” I continue after hearing the feedback from
my students’ inner editors.
Villains
wielding swords, with scowling faces, missing teeth and furrowed brows evolved
on the blank pages of the kids’ workbooks.
“Now it’s
time for these inner editors to take a hike,” I told my students.
I walked
around the room with a shoe box covered in bronze-colored paper. After the last
editor was in the box, I closed the lid and wrapped metallic string around and
around the box to lock it.
“Is that
barbed wire?” a sixth grader asked, incredulous.
“Yes.
Star-studded barbed wire.”
The box
rattled in my hands. I could hardly contain the energy inside the bronze-covered
shoe box.
“These editors
are desperate to get out,” I warned, “but if we want to write a novel in thirty
days, we can’t let them out until December 1.”
Some of the
younger students looked worried. (Okay, so maybe the shaking box was a little
bit much.)
“Are we
going to let these inner editors out of the box?” I asked.
“No way!” the
kids hollered, a few boys adding an air-punch for emphasis.
If keeping
their inner editors in the box is the one thing my students learn through this NaNoWriMo
experience, I’ll be thrilled.
And, they’ll
be decades ahead of me.
I have a
powerful, demanding and often hope-dashing inner editor who has played a leading
role in my writing life: You’re going to
use that word? Who will want to read this? You can’t write. You don’t have an MFA. You’re not old enough. Wait, you’re too old,
it’s too late. You don’t have time.
I’ve heard
this voice for years, but it wasn’t until I took the NaNoWriMo challenge myself
in November 2010 that I understood the power my inner editor had over my
creative process.
My sons
were age two and six, I was working full-time in a corporate cube and commuting
an hour each way. Since college, I’d been too busy (drinking beer, teaching ESL
in Japan ,
romancing with my future husband) to write. Skeptics, including my inner
editor, told me I had no business taking on the challenge of writing a novel,
much less attempting to write one in thirty days.
I signed up
anyway. And I wrote 50,064 words in 30 days.
“How did
you do it?” everyone asked after I came out of the NaNoWriMo fog.
The answer was
simple: I told my inner editor to take a hike.
During
NaNoWriMo, I gave myself permission to write a less-than-perfect novel. I
ignored the thoughts that I had to come up with the “perfect” first sentence,
find the “perfect” time to write, or labor late into the night, attempting to
format a document so that it was “just right”.
With thirty
days of practice, I gained confidence. My inner editor got quiet.
"Don’t look at this
early stage for every sentence to be perfect—that will come. Don’t expect every
description to be spot-on. That will come too. This is an opportunity to
experiment. It’s your giant blotter. An empty slate, ready to be filled."
These encouraging
words in Jasper Fforde’s pep talk to
participants in the 2010 NaNoWriMo rang true. Having sent my inner editor on a
hike, day by day, word by word, I was able to fill the empty slate.
My creative
self took over. I added a hospital to the setting. My protagonist befriended a
homeless teen. The plot twisted and turned in ways that my inner editor would
have avoided (and admonished) but which I welcomed. I finished on November 30
with a novel that wasn’t perfect, but that had a beginning, a middle and an end.
A year after I finished NaNoWriMo, I read what I’d written. While there are
revisions to be made, I can say that I like what I wrote. (Take that, inner
editor!)
As my
students prepare for their NaNoWriMo adventures, I hope that locking their
inner editors away in that shoe box will bring them the same sense of freedom;
that they will embrace the time for creativity.
Most
creative folks will agree that keeping the inner editor at bay is difficult. In
fact, since I banished mine two years ago during NaNoWriMo, I’ve noticed my
inner editor creeping back into my writing world.
But I’ve
had enough. I make my way to the garage in search of the box covered in
star-studded barbed wire. There’s got to be enough room for one more inner
editor in the shoe box in the garage: mine.
Note from Lisa: NaNoWriMo begins on November 1. You needn't write a novel during the 30 days; it's also a great way to generate around 50,000 words towards any manuscript or writing project, keep track of your progress, and commit to a regular writing practice. For the math-challenged, 50K words in a month works out to about 1,670 words per day.
3 comments:
Lisa, thank you for publishing Liz's essay on working with the young writers at her son's school. Their "inner editor" responses were a hoot! I can see the box their inner editor drawings are wired up in. I'm eager to read about their progress in the month of November as Liz shepherds them through their Young Writers Program.
My mind is racing about the boxes I have in the basement. I THINK there might be one down there to home my inner editor & shoulder critic both! Thakns for the nudge...
Barbara, thank you for stopping by! A funny coincidence -- I was just drafting a new post for my blog about our YWP progress when I came over to Lisa's blog and saw your comment. Stay tuned and thanks again for your encouragement.
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