When my inner editor starts getting to me through painful insecurity, I start to imagine that she has taken on an appearance of monstrous proportions. When I put all those insecurities into an imaginary persona, I can tame them, lock them up if needed, and get back to writing.
Here are three images I came up with for my inner editor last month:
On a bad day, my inner editor took on the appearance of an eight foot monster with orange skin, three foot fangs, messy green hair, and breath that stank like rotten gym socks. She carried a large club to smash through my entire draft.
On a horribly bad day, my inner editor took on an ultra-professional appearance with supermodel good looks, perfect hair and skin, and small fangs emerging over her blood-red lips. She stalked all over my laptop dressed in a red suit and three inch heels.
On a good day, my inner editor looked like a friendly librarian, showing me the books I needed to make corrections, quietly pointing out my typos, and giving me a pat on the back when I noticed my mistakes before sending them into the world via e-mail, facebook post, or tweet.
Have you ever used your imagination to tame your insecurities? What does your inner editor look like?
