A few days ago, Kristen Lamb posted an article on her blog, discussing the problem with editing in mid-writing. I just found it via twitter today, but I think it’s a phenomenal piece on the importance of writing for the sake of writing, and not taking the time to edit until you’re done. This goes beyond NaNoWriMo, and is a great reminder to all of us that there is, whether we like it or not, a definite order to things. Write now, edit later. If you’ll excuse me, I have some writing to do. It is still November, after all.
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The Swords of the Ancients 
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I dunno, I’m picky about a lot of my wording and constantly seeking inconsistencies when I go back to look for details and make sure I’m keeping them the same. I’ll often go back and read my work just for pleasure, and for me that’s an editing process by itself, as I catch little errors or fix things that don’t work so well word-wise. But that’s just me.
I’m an editor by nature, so I have to switch off a little bit of myself when I’m writing. Obviously, there are some things that I will still correct, even in the roughest of rough drafts, but it still happens. It’s fighting my nature to leave things uncorrected. However, I still intend to let NaNoWriMo force me to write, and let it turn into yet another rough draft, albeit the longest one I’ll have ever written to this point.
‘Write now, edit later’ – a very good point. I got myself in a bit of a hole a couple of years back, as I’d spent so much time working on editing one project that I’d gotten stuck in the mindset of an editor. Everything I tried to write would make it as far as a couple of hundred words before the editor would come out and say ‘No, it’s all rubbish’, and it’d all get deleted. That’s why I first did NaNoWriMo a couple of years back, as I needed the challenge of writing for the sake of writing to put the editor back into his rightful place, and to let the writer come back into the light.
Yeah, I’m about halfway through my first ever attempt at NaNo. Somehow I made it through an English degree without ever hearing about it until a month and a half ago. It’s a great challenge, like you said. We have to let the writer shine, and let the editor have his usual place. *sigh* In the shadows, drinking a beer.