Envisioning what editors are going to say when they reject your work.
Remembering the unkind words of former teachers.
Going over all the disappointments you’ve suffered.
Telling yourself you don’t know how to write or that you’ll never get published.
If you have found yourself doing any of the above (and, let’s face it, you have), then you have been visited by the Demon Editor: a grotesque being who lurks in the dark corners of the writer’s mind and exists for the sole purpose of undermining your writing.
The Demon Editor is a shapeshifter: It takes many forms. It is tenacious and sneaky, with an insatiable appetite for misery, and it feeds on writers’ fear.
Whatever the demon editor is telling you, that voice in your head is, at the very least, annoying—and, at worst it can pound you into paralysis
I have been visited by the Demon Editor so many times, I’ve named mine. I realized long ago that I had to come up with ways to deal with it. Here are four strategies I use for silencing the Demon Editor. Try them the next time the D.E. starts hanging out in your head:
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1. Communicate with it.
Have a conversation with the Demon Editor. Ask it what it wants. Listen for its response:
To make sure you know what a lousy writer you are.
To see you hurt.
To make you frustrated and scared.
To get you to give up.
Whatever answer you get from the Demon Editor, you can be sure it’s going to be something that makes you realize this is no one you want to be listening to.
2. Confront it.
At the risk of sounding a little unbalanced, I’ll admit that I have, on occasion, said, “shut up,” out loud to the voice in my head. I have written notes to my Demon Editor saying it’s not welcome. I’ve ordered it out of the house. One of these days, I’m going to post an eviction notice on my door.
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3. Turn Down the Volume
Sometimes the confrontational approach doesn’t work—and it runs the risk of firing your D.E. up, making it all the more eager to undermine you.
A gentler approach is to turn down the volume on it.
Imagine the voice (or voices) speaking in your head. Listen to them for a moment.
Now turn the volume down a notch. Go from eleven to ten, from ten to eight, step by step down the scale. Hear the voice become softer and softer. At some point, you’ll have difficulty making out the words. Then, you’ll hardly notice there’s a voice at all.
If you are a visual person, do it this way:
Envision the voice(s) moving away from you. See them getting smaller and smaller as they float into the distance. Eventually, they’ll be so far out in the void of space they are virtually insubstantial.
4. Just Keep Writing
When all else fails, my solution is simple: I just write.
You keep imagining all the rejection slips you’re going to get. Write anyway.
You’re grieving over a mountain of recent disappointments. Write anyway.
You’re convinced your work is pathetic and unpublishable. Write anyway.
It’s my mantra. Make it yours: Just write. Just write. Just keep writing.
Try these, and post here letting me know how they work for you. Do you have other ways of dealing with your Demon Editor? I’d love to hear about them!
Brilliant, and nice to know I’m not alone. I like to think of my DE being told to go stand in the corner until I need an editor. Sometimes it works, but I’m with you – write anyway.
Well said, West.