Is this making you procrastinate?
Today, I want to address one of the most common issues I hear from writers: their mean inner critic keeps convincing them not to write.
Most of us have an inner critic, a judge, a mean voice inside our heads who persuades us to procrastinate far more than we’d like.
For some of us, it’s louder and more constant than others. When it’s really debilitating it can paralyse us, stopping us writing altogether, stopping us from ever finishing something, or stopping us from sending it out.
It tells us our ideas aren’t good enough, so we don’t ever start.
Perhaps it convinces us to wait for that elusive perfect idea.
Sometimes it tells us we don’t have anything original to say. So why bother?
Or, we start writing, but then reread what we’ve written and that sneaky voice persuades us it’s rubbish and so we stop. Or we edit it endlessly, never getting to the end.
Or, we finish our work but the voice inside tells us we’re not worthy enough to be a writer, so we never actually send it out.
Or, we send it out to a handful of people, it gets rejected, and the voice pops up again, insisting that no one will ever like it, so we stop sending it out altogether.
Does any of this resonate with you?
I love understanding psychology – so I’ve built up a list of 6 powerful strategies that help me quieten that mean voice when it tries to take over. I hope you find them helpful too.
6 Tips to Help you Shut up Your Inner Critic
1. Take the focus off the end product, and instead, concentrate on the simple process of writing.
The task at hand. All that matters is the task at hand. Your daily goal. Writing for 10 minutes. Writing 500 words. Writing a paragraph. When you focus on the task at hand, you’re not thinking about becoming a best-selling author, a millionaire, or a celebrity. Whatever it is, there’s no room in your brain for that, if you’re just simply focusing on the process of writing, every day. Writing is a craft, and it’s part of your daily life. It’s not a goal to be reached.
When we worry about the end product, the best-selling book, or us, the millionaire author – firstly, it paralyses us and makes us hypercritical.
But secondly, when we get there, it feels like an anti-climax, if all we’ve ever focused on is getting a book published. It’s disappointing when it happens.
However, if you focus on the task at hand, it gives your life meaning. Being a writer is about expressing yourself in words on paper every single day. And that feels important.
It’s not about the odd occasion when a book comes out and people either like it or don’t.
If you’re focused on the process, not the outcome – you’ll have moved on to the next writing project by the time the book comes out, so you’ll be less invested in whether or not it succeeds or fails.
Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still have to put your heart and soul into selling it and marketing it and yourself. But you’ll also be sticking with your daily writing habit, which becomes as necessary as eating and sleeping and your other daily habits.
2. Quantity not quality
This might sound counterintuitive, especially if you have perfectionistic tendencies, which I’m sure we all do, to some degree.
But instead of thinking “I need to come up with one brilliant idea that will sell”. Reframe it.
When we focus on quantity, we force ourselves to practise our craft over and over and over, and therefore we naturally get better. (There’s a lovely story that shows this in action here)
When we focus on quantity rather than worry about quality – we become less precious about each word, each idea, each story or joke, and instead, we focus on being prolific and productive. No one word or idea needs to be perfect, we just keep writing and this takes the pressure off us. When the pressure is off we aren’t so riled by that mean voice in our heads.
3. Give yourself permission to write a rubbish first draft
We generally see the perfect final draft of something – a book, a film – whatever it is, it’s usually been highly polished, and yet we compare our terrible first drafts, to these perfect final drafts. And that makes us feel bad.
Instead, if you tell yourself, it’s just a first draft, it’s OK to be rubbish, and again, that takes the pressure off yourself, which is what we need. This frees you up to take more risks, which is what you want when you’re in the early stages of the creative process.
This leads me on to…
4. Don’t edit as you go. Concentrate on getting to the end
Coming up with ideas and writing a first draft requires you to be open to every crazy idea that pops into your head. The beginning is not the time to be judgmental.
However, when we’re editing, we must be judgmental. That’s the very nature of the editing process.
So if you’re both writing and editing at the same time, your brain will be in judgmental mode which could lead you to instinctively throw out good ideas as you’re writing, especially if they’re a bit unusual. This means that you might end up with something overly familiar, bland and cliched.
Instead, focus on getting to the end, and then you’ll know what you’ve got to work with. Go back to Tip 1. What is your task at hand? Writing. Not editing. Not perfecting. Just writing your draft.
However, I’m a big believer in getting feedback and testing your idea out as you go to make sure it is rock solid, before you dive right into writing thousands of words. So I advise getting feedback on your idea, outline and possibly even your chapters, as you go. Think of each chapter as a self-contained short story, get feedback, revise your outline if necessary, and then put the feedback somewhere safe for later, when you’re in the edit stage. (Here’s an article I wrote about getting feedback).
But don’t edit as you go. Because as you start to reread and edit your work, there is a fair chance that your dreadful inner critic will pipe up and start convincing you it is hopeless, and make you give up before you reach the end.
5. Talk back to your inner critic – give it a name.
Thanks for your help, Jerry, but I don’t need you today. I’ll get back to you when I’m in the editing stage. Bye-bye for now. Send your critic on its way!
6. Talk to yourself in the 3rd person
You got this, Katy. You can do it. All you’ve got to do is write for 10 minutes. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just get some words on the page. I believe in you.
Talking to yourself in the 3rd person gives you some emotional distance; it can reduce the panic when you’re in a stressful situation. And let’s face it, writing feels stressful at times.
And finally, a bonus tip…
7. A quote from Ann Patchett
Best-selling and award-winning novelist Ann Patchett struggles with self-doubt, just as we mere mortals do.
When asked about how she deals with self-doubt, this is what she said:
I have the ability to forgive myself… What is in my head is so beautiful, so moving, so important, but I cannot get what is in my head on paper. No-one can… You have to say, this is the best I could do today. And I forgive myself.
I find this so helpful and relatable – do let me know if you do too.
These tips can be used separately or in combination with one another. Together they will help you feel more in control of your inner critic. But remember, it’s an ongoing process, so please don’t beat yourself up if you stumble along the way. Take it one step at a time.
You’ve got this.
Don’t forget, there’s no shame in getting some help.
COACHING
If you’re really struggling with an extra fierce inner critic and need some 1:1 coaching, please get in touch as I’d love to be on your side.
I help my clients develop strong writing habits that empower them to write more consistently and joyfully. This helps them to complete their novels, screenplays, animation ideas and other works-in-progress.
We work on all the tricky emotions that go hand in hand with being a writer.
But we can work on plot, structure and character too.
I also support my clients in confidently sharing their work, helping them come up with a plan to keep submitting their scripts and manuscripts over and over – rather than letting self-doubt hold them back.
Because when you consistently share your work with the world, you massively increase the chances of your work being published or produced.
Wondering if we’d be a good fit? Please book a FREE Discovery Call and ask me anything.
FREE RESOURCES
Silent Scribes is happening again on Wednesday 6th November at 9.30 am UK time. Why write alone when you could have company?
London Writers Meetup is happening again on Tuesday 12th November at 7.30 pm UK time.
This is a super friendly group. So if you’re stuck, feeling lost, or just want to hang out with other writers and talk about writing! You can ask us anything – share resources – set a writing goal – make writer friends – and come away feeling encouraged and inspired! I hope to see you there!
Don’t forget to join our Facebook Group and stay on track with your goal every week.
Thanks again for the call on Thursday. I felt so energized after the discussion and was very happy with the ideas to be implemented. I ended up writing for 3 hours that night and wrote for another hour today.
Delightful words from my talented client, Matt