Consistency thy name is EDITOR

On October 11, my mom and I watched the second episode of the CBS show Three Rivers.  (Sigh, Moonlight  we barely knew thee.)  My mom and I had watched the pilot episode the week before.

It's common that from pilot to second episode there are changes.  Someone's re-cast, a character is eliminated and another brought in, etc.  But the writers are always consistent with timelines and such.

Except on Three Rivers.  In the first episode, there's a new transplant assistant coordinator (whatever his title is).  The doctors all know who he is, he seems to have a pretty good handle on what his job entails, etc.

In episode 2, he's just being hired.  No one knows him and he's thrust into an entirely new situation that he has no idea how to handle.  He doesn't seem able to do his job, etc.

Consistency thy name is EDITOR.

Or, in our case, internal editor.  For writers, we have to know everything about our characters, etc. there is to know before we start writing so that we can stay consistent.  This will help keep plot holes to a minimum in first draft, etc.  (I really like using "etc" in this post, eh?)  So we need to develop a good editorial eye to keep consistent within each project.

That's all.  It was just really bugging me that this had happened on network television.  Sigh.

Oh, and please vote in the poll.  (See sidebar.)  Any "other votes" please use the comments for this post to explain.  Footloose and Fancy-free would be a chance for me to just talk about whatever.  Poetry would be topics related to the craft of poetry (a lot of which I've found helpful in fiction writing).  Just let me know as I'm still struggling with this one.  Thanks.

Exorcising the Inner Critic

My inner critic loves to come out and play. A lot. Especially when my overactive brain starts to kick in and read far too much in other peoples’ actions, reactions, and speech. The harshest blows to my psyche from this inner critic come in relation to things that happen involving the opposite sex. It’s stupid, I know, but I can’t help it. I know I'm not the only one who deals with her inner critic. Natalie over at Between Fact and Fiction posted about it today as she's gone back into writing mode after revising for a good while.

I could label my inner critic a "he," but I've never known a guy as catty, cynical, snide, or debasing as my inner critic. But I've known plenty of girls that were that way. So it may be a bit cliche, but my inner critic is a she.

We have to exorcise our inner critic, at least in the early stages of writing. We have to learn to recognize the critic's destructive comments from the constructive ones.

How?

I took a class in graduate school called "Meditation and Writing." Or something like that. (Sorry, Michael.) It was a one-week course (easiest 3 credits I've ever earned), five days for 8 hours or so. We spent the morning doing free-writing exercises, meditating, and discussing the textbook for the course. (I know, right? A textbook for a 1-week class? We didn't read the whole thing.) This book is titled The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I've yet to go through the entire 12 week process she outlines in her book. But there's one thing she discusses that I've done consistently for nearly the last 2 months.

Morning pages.

What are morning pages you ask? To quote Ms. Cameron: "Put simply, the morning pages are three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness."

I write them first thing (usually), before I even get out of my bed.

These pages are most often filled with random ramblings about various things, sometimes I'll put in my latest number of blog followers if it's something that runs through my head. The general idea is to just get the negativity out onto paper first thing in the morning so that it's not with you so much in the day.

When I first started out with the morning pages I really couldn't see a benefit. They were still so negative and directionless. I often would put in a to-do list or a to-read list just to fill the pages faster. It does take a long time to do this. Usually about 45-50 minutes or even longer depending on how much is running through my head.

Today I realized that the pages aren't as negative any more. In fact, now I mostly ramble about what I wrote or accomplished writing-wise, where I need to go, questions that I need to answer for myself so that my book isn't completely directionless, etc. There are still the occasionally snarky comments from my inner critic, but I'm slowly silencing her and exorcising her presence from my writing life.