Snooger, a snoggle, woke up to a blazing sun. Snoggle Swamp was hot and wet this morning, which was nothing new. After all, it was a swamp.
(Uh oh — you didn’t hear this, dear reader, because you can’t hear what’s in my head, but the Self-Editor is also awake, trying to form the exact right words to put down so that Snooger and his swamp appear perfectly formed on the page.
But that isn’t the point of this exercise, is it? No, my fingers are supposed to fly across the page and whatever comes out is OK, because I’ll go back and save the brilliant ideas and discard the silly ones — unless it’s supposed to be a silly story, and then I’ll keep the silly ideas and discard the bland ones — but the point is to race across the page and write without that idiotic Self-Editor trying to manipulate the words so they’re just-so-perfect right there on the page the first time he gives me permission to set anything down on the page.
Well, oh yeah, sez I? I give my Self-Editor permission to stuff himself into the arse of the left side of my brain and sit there reading spreadsheets until I’m ready to let him out! Right now, it’s time for flying through space and climbing faraway mountains or shrinking to the size of amoebas and rustling bacteria into their cages, do you hear? No more self-editing!! At least until it’s time to take a break and see what’s been hurled freely onto the page without that worse-than-senseless fool of a Self-Editor who can’t stand the sight of freedom.)
Now, as I was saying …
Snooger, a snoggle, woke up to a blazing sun. Snoogle Swamp was always hot, and always wet, because of course swamps on Venus are always hot and wet. If you were closer to the sun by 26 million miles, you would be hot and wet all the time, too.
(The next half-hour turned out to be amazing, in part because two friends happened to drop reading prompts at just the right moment. I must wait to share that scene, because it’s part of a larger bit of writing that I plan to share by year’s end. If all writing sessions went this well, I would promise to share it before summer. All I know is: When I banned the Self-Editor from lurking where he doesn’t belong, all heaven broke loose.)