Turning Off the Editor Mind and "NaSSWriMo"

I mentioned in an earlier post that I need to turn off my "editor mind." What I meant was that I need to stop critiquing and editing my writing as I write the rough draft. I need to save the editing for later. In fact, it has been shown that editing while trying to be creative often limits the creativity that follows (it's almost as if your subconscious mind stops responding if you yell at it--go figure. Either that, or you keep re-working that first paragraph and never finish the story--that's the situation I'm in now).

So, in an effort not only to shut off the "editor mind," but also to be more productive in general, I have created a little scheme. There is such a thing as NaNoWriMo (National Novel-Writing Month). The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month--that's a touch over 1,600 words per day. I've decided to do NaSSWriMo: National Short Story Writing Month. My idea is to write 50,000 words worth of short stories in a month.

If short stories average between 5,000-7,5000 words, I should end up with 7-10 short stories. My plan is to try a variety of stories, a variety of ideas, and a variety of voices. In the end, I hope to learn quite a bit about my writing style, my voice, and my process. And hopefully one or two might even be worth submitting for publication after a little editing work.

It should be an interesting November.