Fun.

That’s what I told everyone: The  2010 MBT WriMo Celebration was going to be fun!

And then I set my alarm for  November 1, 2010. Bounded out of bed that morning before anyone else in the  house was awake. Ran downstairs, ignoring the dogs whining for breakfast.
Settled in front of my computer, ready to go.

Because  I had 50k words to write in 30 days. This was gonna be fun.And then the screaming started.Not me—Ed, as in my Internal Editor, started screaming.For every word I typed, he screamed a barrage of insults.

“That’s an awful opening line!”“You need a bigger DELETE button!”“You should’ve stayed in bed! The dogs could write better than this!”Oh, yeah. This was some kind of fun.Writing that morning was a-g-o-n-y. There was only one voice in my head that morning: Ed’s. And he wasn’t happy with my plot, progress or potential.But tomorrow, ah tomorrow! Tomorrow, as Scarlett
O’Hara was wont to say, was another day!And guess who waited for me as soon as I engaged my hero and heroine the next morning? That’s right: Ed, who was fast becoming the villain of my work-in-progress (WIP).The entire time I wrote (an hour),
Ed ranted and raved. Ed wasn’t nice — but he was consistent. I had no right WriMo-ing, lousy writer that I was.

So, how did I handle Ed’s uber-bad attitude?I ignored him.Simple as that.I got up morning after morning and
wrote. I refused to pull the covers back over my head, even though I knew what waited for me when I opened my Word document. I refused to push either the DELETE button or the BACKSPACE button. (Both signs that I was listening to Ed.) I focused on forward motion and didn’t look back. No editing. I didn’t even double-back to correct spelling because I knew Ed would ambush me.It’s a year later. Time for the 2011 MBT WriMo. And guess what? I’m telling everyone that’s it’s going to be
fun, fun, fun.Because it is.

Sure, I may run into Ed again.But I know he’s all bluster. I know how to handle him.Drown him out with words, words, words – 50k of ‘em.

Works every time.

Special Teams Blogger, Beth K. Vogt

MBT’s Skills Coach, Beth K. Vogt provides her readers with a
happily ever after woven through with humor, reality, and God’s lavish grace.
Her debut novel, Wish You Were Here,
will be published in May 2012 by Howard Books. She’s also written Baby Changes Everything: Embracing and
Preparing for Motherhood after 35 for Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS)
International and is a consulting editor for their magazine, MomSense, and a bimonthly columnist for MOMSnext, an e-zine for moms of
school-age children.