I’m not talking about hiring a ghost writer.  I’m talking about reading your manuscript and wondering where in the world did that (paragraph, page, chapter…whatever) come from? 

     You’ve rolled along on your writing for days, and then you hit a bump that made you stop.  You decide to go back and read over what you’ve written.  Strange sentences jump out at you.  It seems that someone else took over your keyboard and did the typing for you.  Your characters are clumsy, their dialogue is stilted, the scenery has lost its luster, and everything that you thought was brilliant looks dull.

     Do you stop and fix it?  Sometimes if it’s bad enough, you might.  Otherwise, it might be better to mark the spots where things took a downhill plunge to fix up later, and push on. 

     What do I do?  I hit the ‘text highlight color’ and highlight everything that is weak.  This way I can go back later and easily spot the areas I need to fix.  When do I fix them?  I fix them on those days where I am having trouble moving forward in the book.  I find that if I go back and do my corrections I can often find the insight in my characters or their motivations that I need to continue.