Step one - Write. Step two - Edit.

It's like marching left, right, left, right, hup, two, three, four…

Write first, edit second; write first, edit second.

This is a great mantra! Recite it to yourself often.

Editing on the fly — always — messes with your getting to inspired, original creation.

Step one - Write fast to overwhelm your internal editor. It's key to be clear and firm about writing first, editing later. Your unconscious will catch on quickly and bring torrents of inspired writing to your awareness!

Step two - Edit it all later or on another day, during a separate session.

All good authors follow this law. You allow your unconscious mind the space to express — as fast and as much as possible, without any rules to follow (other than more and fast is better!) and then clean, arrange and spruce it up later.

Many authors speak of how they were just channels for the book; or how the characters wrote the book; or even how it landed — plomp! — in their head and they just had to copy it down!

I am encouraging you to allow this to happen within a structure that allows your unconscious opportunities to express. Then later, let your conscious mind fine tune the writing output. Of course there are techniques to get the edit function to a more unconscious action as well!

Your unconscious mind is just better at most complex undertakings. The more you allow it to "do it's thing" the faster and better your writing will get, and no blocks!

Okay… you might want to know why this works and works so well.

Your first instinct when you sit down to write is to become guarded and cautious. (Whether that's because of the modality of written communication or because that is how we've been taught to approach writing is fuel for another fire, on another day…)

We don't do this at all when we talk — except for interviews or when the consequences of what we say next are large. But we clearly do this with writing and for many of you, it becomes a major block to your writing.

Author and writing teacher Peter Elbow contends that the problem stems from trying to do to much, at once. It is fairly hard to produce new, original scribbling, and you add to the difficulty exponentially by adding in the requirements to edit, rewrite, rethink and revise. All at once!

You are trying to put down the "right" words at the same time as you are attempting to let the raw, fragmented and shaky legged thoughts escape onto paper. It's too much and to damn hard!

No wonder you get blocked!

By splitting the two functions of creation and editing into separate steps, you free yourself to let more original thoughts out. The key to getting to great thoughts is to express lots of thoughts!