Muting my inner editor with caffeine and drugs

Warning: This blog post was written "under the influence", so my thoughts may not be pieced together in the most coherent fashion.

Okay, not illegal drugs. Cough and congestion meds, because I am sick, and being doped up on this stuff helps my mind to relax and just write. Also caffeine because OMGZ THIS STUFF IS FLOWING THROUGH ME I'M ON THE TOP OF THE WORLD LET'S WRITE ALL THE THINGS.

I started getting into writing poetry last year, and as usual, I sucked. Reading back on my first poems (and even some stuff I wrote back 4 or 5 months ago) makes me cringe and want to run away.

But not all my poetry is bad, and this is something I need to understand. I've seen bits and pieces of my poetry that looks like it has promise. Sure some lines are going to need tweaking, but for the most part, the poem captured what I wanted to say.

Back near the end of August, I started submitting poetry. Of course, despite my minor edits, they still sucked. (Reading back on them now causes me no end of embarrassment.) And as usual, they got rejected. All three of them. But now that I've written more poetry and read some more, I understand what was fundamentally wrong with those poems and why they were rejected. Yet it's still hard not to become the slightest bit discouraged, y'know?

I don't plan on submitting anything again for a long time. During this lovely December, I'll be focusing on poetry more. God only knows what weird stuff I'll get out, but I can't edit a blank page. I have to write something, no matter how awful it is. Because it can be fixed. The first draft is for making a mess, revision is for making that mess something pretty.

But lately as I've sat down with my poetry notebook, I've found it hard to write a complete poem. I usually write out a couple of paragraphs before I stop completely, because my inner editor points out what is wrong and how much it sucks. Then I usually lose the energy to write any more on it, and I turn the page and try again. Rinse and repeat.

This has led to my free-writings some stuff. Not poetry, mind you, but prose-ish stuff. It's actually really fun, and most of the time I end up completing these pieces.

I never thought I'd have such trouble with my inner editor. I can write stories without it piping up too much (usually because I'm writing a story during NaNo), but when I start writing poetry, my IE is practically screaming at me. It's a strange and frightening experience.

So hopefully during these next few weeks, I can manage to make Her shut up for a while. I don't know how long I'll have an excuse to be doping myself up with these meds, seeing as I got sick on Sunday and am feeling a bit better now (but my cough/congestion is still here, just not as fierce). Either way, I'm going to keep going. I have to keep going, because I want to be a published poet one day. I can't edit a blank page.

Now to find a place to stash some more caffeine at....