Banish the Inner Writing Critic? Maybe not so fast.

The polite name for him or her (or them) is the "inner critic". The more common appellation might be that lousy jerk (or crowd) inside my head who won't shut up and keeps telling me what I'm writing is crap. You know that voice, don't you? 

The one on constant rewind, that endless loop of self-recrimination that's moving along at a faster clip then your fingers on the keyboard, dancing to its own destructive beat, that repetitive drone of No! Wrong! Bad! Unoriginal! Cliché! Trite! Been done before! Boring! Stupid!

I think every writer, to some degree or another, has this internal censor, the uninvited disruptive guest whose job seems to be to put a stop to your writing, to make us doubt ourselves, our stories, our right to write those stories.

So, what to do?  I think we've got three choices.

If you're lucky, or practiced and determined and experienced – or maybe just handy with self-hypnosis – find a way to completely turn this voice off. Flip a switch, banish it, move on. (Good luck and let me know how you did it.)

If you're not that writer, then you'll still be dealing with that critic's carps:  It's too long!  Too short!  Not deep enough!  Plot hole!  Thin plot! Why the hell can't you think of a plot!

Option two: we learn to ignore that voice. It doesn't go away, and yes, we know it's there, but maybe we grow skilled at letting the unhelpful chatter fade into the white background noise of our brain. Yeah, we hear it, but we've learned not to acknowledge it, to write anyway. We deal with like the stand-up comic trains herself to ignore the hecklers and turn away from the audience members who keep their arms folded and mouths arranged in frowns.

This is where I find myself most often. When I hear the internal cynic revving up—No one cares! Dumb details! Vague! Generic! Learn some new damn verbs!—in another part of my brain I'm thinking, "Yeah, yeah, yada, yada, yada," and I keep writing that lousy first draft, or revising that limping second draft

But not always.

Sometimes that voice is too loud, too insistent. And sometimes, got to admit, sometimes that loathsome little twerp is too close to what I think may be the truth. Yep, sometimes that inner critic has something to say that I need to hear.

So I listen. But. I don't stop what I'm writing, don't just agree with the voice, delete, and close the laptop.

What I sometimes do is find a way to acknowledge the points that voice is railing about. I take notes, either in the side margins of what I'm writing (you can use Track Changes, or divide the text into two columns, one for your draft, the second for the critic's notes). Sometimes I jot these nagging nabobs of negativism on a sticky note, or in my writer's notebook.

Just the act of recording the criticism seems to end it – I've cleared it out of my head and have it on hand should I need/want to consider whether it has any validity. In a way, I've "honored" that inner critic—or at least what I like to think of as his well-meaning but tactless spirit—by taking down the message, and moving on.

Mind you, I don't write precisely what I hear between my ears (Crappy dialogue! Confusing backstory! Terrible transition!), but try to translate the raw thought into something that may prove helpful later: Is this conversation authentic to the time period?  Can I move more of the backstory to previous pages?  Find a smoother way to get from A to B?

What I've figured out is that the grumbling, grousing, complaining, crabby, argumentative, techy naysayer who lives in my head is not going away. He can be silenced on occasion and I know how to ignore him and push him into the background, but once in a while, that guy is going to have something handy to say. He just doesn't always say it so nicely. 

Images - all Flickr/Creative Commons: NO - AranZazu; Switch - LynnDurfey; Listening - BesZain

Friday Fridge Clean-out: Links for Writers - December 13, 2013 Edition

> Deflated by workshop feedback? Diana Munoz Stewart at The Write Catch has some excellent thoughts on what to do with all that comes your way across the workshop table, in "Why So Many Good Writers Can't Write".

> Good post by Bryan Cohen over at Memoir Writer's Journey, on "Using Sense Memory to Remember Story Details."

> Your book has won an award. Now what?  At Build Book Buzz, Sandra Beckwith has 12 good ideas on spreading the news.

> Cool slide show -- 50 narrative devices for nonfiction story tellers, over at Inside the Story.

> If you tweet to attract readers, build your platform, or expand your writing-related business, you might need these "50 Ways to Get Out of Your Twitter Rut."

> Like to make a donation that goes directly to helping kids and teens read good books? I favor the Books section at Donors Choose, where teachers post requests and you pick the classroom and project you want to help. Make a pledge, then get updates, and a note (and sometimes a photo) from the teacher when the project is fully funded, and books have been purchased and are in kids' hands.

> Interesting, detailed report on "The Ghostwriting Business" over at Priceonomics.

> Continuing with my new practice of pointing my readers to other blogs that post interesting links lists, be sure to check out Erika Dreifus's Friday Finds for Writers.

> Finally, two fun things... First, over at Rattle, Francesca Bell's hilarious poem that expresses what every writer who has ever received a rejection (hey, that's every writer, right?), might like to say in return.  And, "The Top Ten Reasons Not to Write", over at Brenda Moguez's Passionate Pursuits. Numbers 10, 5, and 1 said it all for me!

Have a great weekend!

Every Writer Can Get Something Out of NaNo -- Whether Signed Up or Not

NaNo-ing or not?

Are you one of the 287,052 writers participating in National Novel Writing Month? 

I'm not, lots of writers I know are, but either way, signed up or not, there's a lot about NaNo that can help a writer.

And not only novelists, either. Plenty of NaNo writers are working on memoirs, poetry, children's books, essays collections, general nonfiction, plays. And writers of all kinds can learn something from how NaNo is designed.

The concept travels well across the literary landscape:  You commit to banishing your inner critic, to keep moving forward without dropping back to revise or edit; you commit to keep track of your word counts, to be accountable, and at the end of a month, you have at least 50,000 words (do-able at a daily rate of  about 1667 words).

You get to say I Did It!

That alone is a good thing, because writers so often say the opposite:  I never got around to finishing X.  I planned to write Y but life got in the way. I can't seem to get going (or keep going) with Z.

I completed the NaNo sprint twice in the last five years, but instead of expecting to end the month with a draft of a book manuscript, I used the motivation and group peer pressure, the sweep of public let's-all-get-it-written, and the external productivity and accountability tools to carry me along toward private goals, accumulating pages that would feed several projects.

Whether you're "doing NaNo" or not this year, you can still benefit from the wave of NaNo mania that is certainly showing up in your social media stream. Maybe you don't want to write 50,000 words in a month (there are good reasons NOT to!), or your writing goals and projects are in different stages right now than would benefit from such a blitz.

But you can take the time now, while many writers around you are re-dedicating themselves to meeting daily word counts, to ask yourself if you're meeting your daily word or page or time-in-writing-chair goals. Is your manuscript draft humming along?  Are you visiting it often enough? 

In less than two months, you'll be asking yourself what you got done as a writer this year. Maybe November – NaNo or not – is a great time to begin taking stock, while there's still time to do something about it.

Are the chapters moldering?  Are you watching reruns instead of revising?  Have your submissions slacked off? 

For many smart writers who don't expect to come out of NaNo with anything other than a stack of pages that need an awful lot of work, the real reason we all need a productivity boost once in a while is just that: You emerge with pages that need work, pages that you can work on, revise, edit. And isn't that the goal of every writer, every day, every month anyway? To end up with pages filled with words? Because you know what you can't do with a blank page, right?

Guest Blogger Liz Sheffield on Banishing the Inner Editor with NaNoWriMo

Liz Sheffield has been a writing student and editing client of mine over the last few years. She is a blogger and freelance writer focused on the topics of parenting, wellness and leadership.  Her essays, articles and short fiction have been published in national and regional publications, including Brain, Child and Family Fun. Until recently, Liz spent more than 11 years writing, editing and designing training materials for Starbucks. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two young sons.

Please welcome Liz Sheffield

This year, when I asked the young writers in the early weeks of my National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) workshop to tell me what their inner editors say, the kids (ages 8 to 11) didn’t hesitate to respond:

“You suck.”

“That’s no good.”

“You can’t spell.”

Ouch! Our inner editors develop at such a young age.

These fifteen students are part of the afterschool NaNoWriMo workshop I’m teaching at my son’s elementary school. A few years ago, the Office of Letters and Light (OLL) – the group that oversees NaNoWriMo for adults – created the Young Writers Program as well as a NaNoWriMo curriculum for kids and youth. It’s the same concept (write a novel in a month) but with a word count goal that is reasonable for each young writer.

September and October are all about training. In our weekly lessons, we discuss topics such as the inner editor, main characters, plot and setting . The goal is that by November 1, these students will be able to write their novels in 30 days. In order to succeed, I know from personal experience, the first step is to get their inner editors out of the way.

“Next, we’re going to draw these inner editors,” I continue after hearing the feedback from my students’ inner editors.

Villains wielding swords, with scowling faces, missing teeth and furrowed brows evolved on the blank pages of the kids’ workbooks.

“Now it’s time for these inner editors to take a hike,” I told my students.

I walked around the room with a shoe box covered in bronze-colored paper. After the last editor was in the box, I closed the lid and wrapped metallic string around and around the box to lock it.

“Is that barbed wire?” a sixth grader asked, incredulous.

“Yes. Star-studded barbed wire.”

The box rattled in my hands. I could hardly contain the energy inside the bronze-covered shoe box.

“These editors are desperate to get out,” I warned, “but if we want to write a novel in thirty days, we can’t let them out until December 1.”

Some of the younger students looked worried. (Okay, so maybe the shaking box was a little bit much.)

“Are we going to let these inner editors out of the box?” I asked.

“No way!” the kids hollered, a few boys adding an air-punch for emphasis.

If keeping their inner editors in the box is the one thing my students learn through this NaNoWriMo experience, I’ll be thrilled.  

And, they’ll be decades ahead of me.

I have a powerful, demanding and often hope-dashing inner editor who has played a leading role in my writing life: You’re going to use that word? Who will want to read this? You can’t write. You don’t have an MFA. You’re not old enough. Wait, you’re too old, it’s too late. You don’t have time.

I’ve heard this voice for years, but it wasn’t until I took the NaNoWriMo challenge myself in November 2010 that I understood the power my inner editor had over my creative process.

My sons were age two and six, I was working full-time in a corporate cube and commuting an hour each way. Since college, I’d been too busy (drinking beer, teaching ESL in Japan, romancing with my future husband) to write. Skeptics, including my inner editor, told me I had no business taking on the challenge of writing a novel, much less attempting to write one in thirty days.

I signed up anyway. And I wrote 50,064 words in 30 days.

“How did you do it?” everyone asked after I came out of the NaNoWriMo fog.

The answer was simple: I told my inner editor to take a hike.

During NaNoWriMo, I gave myself permission to write a less-than-perfect novel. I ignored the thoughts that I had to come up with the “perfect” first sentence, find the “perfect” time to write, or labor late into the night, attempting to format a document so that it was “just right”.

With thirty days of practice, I gained confidence. My inner editor got quiet.

"Don’t look at this early stage for every sentence to be perfect—that will come. Don’t expect every description to be spot-on. That will come too. This is an opportunity to experiment. It’s your giant blotter. An empty slate, ready to be filled."

These encouraging words in Jasper Fforde’s pep talk to participants in the 2010 NaNoWriMo rang true. Having sent my inner editor on a hike, day by day, word by word, I was able to fill the empty slate.

My creative self took over. I added a hospital to the setting. My protagonist befriended a homeless teen. The plot twisted and turned in ways that my inner editor would have avoided (and admonished) but which I welcomed. I finished on November 30 with a novel that wasn’t perfect, but that had a beginning, a middle and an end. A year after I finished NaNoWriMo, I read what I’d written. While there are revisions to be made, I can say that I like what I wrote. (Take that, inner editor!)

As my students prepare for their NaNoWriMo adventures, I hope that locking their inner editors away in that shoe box will bring them the same sense of freedom; that they will embrace the time for creativity.

Most creative folks will agree that keeping the inner editor at bay is difficult. In fact, since I banished mine two years ago during NaNoWriMo, I’ve noticed my inner editor creeping back into my writing world.

But I’ve had enough. I make my way to the garage in search of the box covered in star-studded barbed wire. There’s got to be enough room for one more inner editor in the shoe box in the garage: mine.

Note from Lisa: NaNoWriMo begins on November 1. You needn't write a novel during the 30 days; it's also a great way to generate around 50,000 words towards any manuscript or writing project, keep track of your progress, and commit to a regular writing practice. For the math-challenged, 50K words in a month works out to about 1,670 words per day.