Separate the writing from the editing

As writers most of us have to go through two processes in order to create something - the writing part, where we have to spend a certain amount of time putting words on paper in order to share our ideas or opinions and the editing part where we have to reread what we wrote in order to make sure our creation is as good as it can be.

For some of us the first part is pretty easy and fun. We love sharing our knowledge, opinions, ideas and so on and we feel good when we have a pen in our hand or a keyboard nearby. For others, editing is fun and interesting.

If we would all do what we love most everything would be amazing, but sadly, the writers have to edit and the editors have to write, at least if we don't have enough money to hire someone else to do the part we hate.

We love the end result and it's amazing when we finally see our work out there, but we have to admit that either editing or writing consumes a huge part of our time that we could invest into what we actually enjoy doing. For example, I love writing because for me it's easy to come up with ideas and with enough words to share them with you, but when it comes to the editing part, I'd rather just lay down in my bed and examine my walls.

That's why I believe we should try to separate them as much as possible and do one thing at the time instead of trying to do both. Most writers who publish daily or multiple times a week use a simple method that helps them finish their work - they write and then they edit, and they repeat the process as much as they feel it's necessary.

But what if we would try something different? What if we would focus on one thing and let the other part for a different day? I did that for a while and I had a nice surprise.

While for me it's easy to write I also have days when I just can't come up with anything interesting. I can't type well, I don't have ideas and the articles I create are just really bad. However, there are days when I can spend hours in front of my computer typing without getting bored, but then I have to stop end focus on editing as well.

Lately I've been trying to take care of whatever I feel I can do best each day. For example, if today I feel like I'm in the mood for writing, I spend as much time as I can creating articles. If I can do that for 6 or 8 hours without getting bored or tired, then I do it. I forget about anything else and I just write as much as I can.

Then when I feel like it's enough and that I should take a break, I stop. Then I start editing, either then or the next day when after writing for hours without stopping I don't have enough inspiration or energy to do anything creative. So, I just edit. I take each article I wrote, I make sure there are no grammatical mistakes in them, that the ideas are well written and that people understand what I'm trying to say.

That results in two things: first, I manage to create a ton of content in a fairly short amount of time without having to stop and worry about other aspects I don't really like and second, focusing on editing as much as I need to and finishing most of my articles in one single day means I will have enough content to publish for a few good days and I don't need to do anything else in that time if I don't want to.

I mentioned in another article how important daily writing is and how that will always help you get better at writing, but the truth is that not everything we write is good enough to publish. Sometimes we just want to type things in our text editor and not worry about how high quality is and what people are gonna think when reading it.

That's why separating writing from editing may help you do everything better and faster. You take your time and create all the content you feel you can create in a certain day, and then you spend as much time as you wish editing and making sure you have enough articles to publish for at least that day.