The Fall 1975 issue of Paris Review featured an interview with novelist John Steinbeck. He won the Pulitzer Prize and was a Nobel laureate, and The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men are still required reading in many English and literature classes. I'm sharing six tips from that interview (culled by the excellent Brain Pickings blog), with a few additional comments by me. This is number two of six:
"Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material."
Many writers have trouble resisting the temptation to rewrite rather than going on. Often this happens as you re-read the previous day's work in order to decide what comes next. One solution: print out the previous day's work and step away from the computer and read it--without a pen in your hand. Without the tools necessary to rewrite, the temptation is eliminated (and it should be easier to avoid doing it when you step back to the computer as well).
(Writing advice from the best classic and modern authors forms the core of Your Creative Writing Masterclass, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from your favorite bookseller.)