The saying “write drunk, edit sober” means that creation and critique are separate processes.
Creation and critique involve two fundamentally opposing mindsets. Trying to do both at the same time is like trying to accelerate and brake at the same time, leading to creative paralysis and burnout.
The drunk creative state is one of honesty and vulnerability. When you create, you don’t quite know what your mind is thinking. When you create you learn by forcing your thoughts out, a momentum that is a result of courage and unfilteredness. How can you find this courage? When the prefrontal cortex is away, the default mode network comes out to play. It can make connections between your memories, not by following rules, but from subconscious leaps of faith. When you brainstorm, you allow yourself to be creative, and temporarily abandon the rules. When you create, you allow yourself to be honest and vulnerable, and you write down a bunch of raw ideas.
The sober critique state includes looking back at how the things you created are very unstructured, and you try to revisit why you created it that way. You will try to rewrite your brainstorm into a better structure, perhaps deleting parts of something, perhaps reading it reminds you of something new you want to add.
We create many things in life. It’s important to remember to write drunk, edit sober.