Write more, think less, fire my editor

It's funny to think that the first article I ever wrote on Vocal was about setting goals and New Year's resolutions, and here I am, 3 years and 108 stories later, writing one again. That first article, as much as I'd genuinely liked it when it was first published, is garbage. I'd rather read the instruction manual for my lawnmower, cover to cover and in all of the languages, than read that piece again.

Ok, it's not quite that boring, but it's not great.

I keep it there though as a reminder of how far I've come. Three years of publishing stories is a long time, and I've learned a hell of a lot. Yet, I can't help but think I could have learned even more if I'd been a little less OCD with the work I published. Even that crappy first article took me several hours to write, with lots of deleting, re-writing and editing before I eventually put it out there. So many wasted hours to produce a single, mediocre piece.

Don't worry, this isn't just several paragraphs of meaningless self-deprecation - I'm getting to the point I promise.

So, I had to ask myself - if, in a few years, I'm probably going to look back on what I'm writing today and think "Hmm, that could have been written much more nicely if only I'd done XYZ" then why should I obsess over the tiny details when I'm writing in the moment? Why not publish more work and get more practice so I can get more skilled?

Don't get me wrong, editing and critiquing your own work is a fantastic way to improve yourself, but as with anything, there's a balance to be found. In this case, it's a balance between publishing too much and not editing enough, and publishing too little and getting stuck in the editing stage, and I tend to drift towards the latter. No, I tend to hurdle myself, head-first with the delete key at my fingertip, towards the latter.

So, how do I fix this?

You probably noticed that I mentioned firing my editor in the title. But don't worry - no one is losing their job. In fact, I don't even technically have an editor. Allow me to explain.

As a self-publishing (sort of) writer, every time I create a new piece I take on two roles:

1. The Author

2. The Editor

The Author is the dreamer, the ideas guy so to say. He dreams up entire universes, empathises with his characters, sketches out plans and crafts the stories I write.

The Editor is an absolute [redacted]. He's the quality control guy and he hates 99% of what The Author writes. Whether it's the characters, the grammar, or entire storylines, The Editor always has something negative to say, and if he doesn't think a story is perfect, it's not getting published. Sometimes, they don't even get written, and are stunted at the 'dot points and ideas' stage.

Now, both of these roles are important in their own way. You can't write anything without The Author, but you also can't publish decent work without having at least a little bit of input from The Editor to make it legible. But as I said already, balance is important.

I've let The Editor take the reigns for the past three years, and sure, I still managed to publish 108 stories on Vocal. But looking back on them, the majority of them were not worth the hours of editing and re-writing it took to get them published. In fact, many of the stories I wrote didn't even make it that far, and I have an accumulating list of unfinished stories in my Vocal Drafts because The Editor said "No".

I call this my Vocal Graveyard. The place where I bury my unpublished drafts - may they rest in peace.

People always say "Quality over quantity" but the irony is that you can't really improve quality without a certain quantity of work. You kind of need both. So here's the solution I propose.

If my goal for publishing on Vocal is to improve my writing and keep track of my progress, then that means (assuming I achieve my goal), no matter how perfect I think my writing is today, I'm going to think it's kind of terrible in a few years time when I look back on it... right? And by that logic, there's really no need to let The Editor have so much control over my work, since he will inevitably hate it in a few years time anyway. Sorry, buddy, you're fired!

Ok, maybe 'fired' wasn't the right word to use - I'm supposed to be aiming for balance here after all. Maybe 'demoted' is a more reasonable way of putting it. I'm taking the reigns back from that perfection-focussed Editor that's holding me back and giving just a little more power to that poor, over-worked and under-appreciated Author.

I'm restructuring the workplace, so to speak.

And that's it really. That's my goal for Vocal - I want to write a little more without overthinking every piece. I want to promote The Author, give him the greenlight, and give just a little less power to The Editor (that power hungry [redacted]). And if he doesn't like that, well, maybe I will actually have to fire him. But for now, he's been given a warning.

No longer shall he be sending my stories to The Graveyard. No, they'll each get their time to shine (or not) post-publication. They might not be perfect, in fact I know they won't be, but each of them, in some shape or form, will be better than the last, even if just by a little bit.

And I know, in a few years time, I'm going to look back on this story in particular with a smile as I remember 2024 - the year I told my Editor to go [redacted] himself.

But until then, The Author has got some stories to publish.