Do not edit while writing!
And, this advice is mostly for people who are just getting started with writing or blogging. You have to understand that writing and editing are completely different things. Switching back and forth between the writing and editing mode hampers your productivity. Your mind can’t handle them both at once.
If you use tools like Google Docs or MS Word or even any other app, most of them have a spell checker and they highlight all the words or sentences that you misspell. And for this reason, I keep my spell-checker turned off while writing so that I do not have the temptation to go back and correct the highlighted word/sentence.
If I am working on an article by myself, I use Obsidian and if I am collaborating with someone, I use Google Docs. And in both cases, I turn the spell checker off while writing. As mentioned in the ”my writing process” article, I am a big fan of Grammarly, and almost all the articles that I write go through the Grammarly app while editing but I keep it turned off while writing.
When you’re in the writing mode, ideas keep flowing through your mind and you rely more on your subconscious than the conscious mind, and shifting into the editing mode disrupts the process. And, it takes time if you again want to shift to the writing mode. However, once you’re finished with the writing, you can turn spell checker and all the other writing tools that you use.
I prefer to edit my pieces the next morning with a fresh look at them and end up making way better than they were earlier. And not just me, famous writer Ayn Rand suggests the editing process for the next day. She says that you can do minor editing like formatting on the same day but the main editing work should be kept for the next day.
Leave a Reply