A Writer's Book of Days - Judy Reeves How to Tell When the Critic Is Present... and What to Do about It Here's a list of telltale signs that indicate the critic is, if not sitting on your shoulder, at least in the room somewhere. You stop writing in the middle of a piece and say something like, "This is not working" or worse, "This is crap" or "This sucks." You hear voices demanding: "Who do you think you are?" or "You call that writing?" or "You think anybody will ever buy that? Fool." Thin tinfoil voices that sound as if they're passing through pinched lips and tight mouths. You can't write what you want to write, your writing dead-ends or trails off into drivel. Your pen is afraid to touch the paper and keeps pulling back. You stop writing on the topic and instead write unkind notes to yourself: "This is junk" or "Blah, blah, blah" or other, more critical comments. You start to judge even your handwriting, saying how bad it is, how sloppy; no one could possibly read it. You judge your hands, how scruffy and unkempt your nails are, how the pen you've chosen is all wrong. You channel people who've criticized your writing, or images of them appear on your page; they're usually smirking. A whole gallery of smirking faces, or that one single idiot with a pea-sized brain and bad breath who told you to consider your day job as a career path. You imagine people laughing behind your back, not just agents or editors but your close friends, who all agree your writing is so bad it's hilarious. This nasty con artist of a voice is your own self-doubt and negativity that must be silenced if you are to get any work done. You can trash the critic, draw pictures of it's ugly face, then tear them up into tiny pieces and toss them in the garbage. Or set them ablaze. You can write all the lines that voice feeds you on strips of paper and put them in a jar. Close the jar tightly so no air can get in and stash it on a shelf deep in your pantry where the light can't reach it. Or in the back of your closet beneath all those old shoes. Maybe in the furthest reaches of the garage or basement. Leave it to the roaches and spiders. You can make a deal with the critic. Ask it to wait outside until you've finished your work, then you'll give it voice (which is a lie, but who's to know). You can scare the little bully off by outbullying it: "Get out of here you twerp!" You can ignore it, give it the old silent treatment until it finally gets bored and skulks away. (Note: This can take more time than you have.) You can recognize it for what it is, self-doubt and fear; acknowledge it; then get on with your writing. If you keep writing no matter what, you can bypass this dead-end road and keep heading west, into the sunset.
