My inner editor can, at times, make my work better. But like the older operating system and browser on my MacBook, sooner or later, it becomes stuck and unresponsive. Instead of that little perpetual spinning pinwheel on my Mac, my inner editor creates a perpetual spiral of doom. 

No longer is it “hey, this scene lags a little; how can you pick up the pace?” No, it’s “how did you ever convince yourself you could write?” Ideas go from being “unworkable in this story, but great fodder for a different one” to “the worst idea ever, and, moreover, the last idea you’ll ever have.” Sentences and phrases lose their ability to be tweaked into building blocks of sweet prose; they are hand grenades of bad writing, poised to blow up a whole body of work.

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