Down With The Internal Critic!

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in English, and sometimes I think they did me more harm than good. Why? Because the one thing I was taught in English Lit class is that great writers agonize over every word. They pull their hair out trying to find the exact right word, the right phrase, and they will revise dozens, even hundreds of times in order to get the words right. There are writers who brag about rewriting parts of their books over and over, and they wear it as a badge of honor, like, “Look how serious I am, I revised my book’s ending 150 times.”

That kind of thinking damaged me for many years. It’s bred the Internal Critic, who sits in his chair with his lips pursed, and as soon as I write a sentence, he says, “No, sorry, that won’t do. Delete it now, before you embarrass yourself, and then start over.”

The Internal Critic has ruined more writers than alcohol, drugs, depression, economic hardship, and all the other obstacles to writing combined. We all have that critic inside us, carping at every sentence we write, telling us we haven’t used the right words, the right spelling, the right grammar, that we haven’t said anything original or clever, that it’s all been said before and why would any reader waste their time reading THIS dreck?

There is a time and place for the critic, but it most certainly is not at the first draft stage. The Internal Critic should be nowhere in site at that stage. In fact, if he shows his prissy face you should tell him to leave immediately or you will do bodily harm to him. When you’re trying to get a first draft of anything written, you should let the words and thoughts spill out as fast as possible, not even caring if any of it makes sense. You should let your fingers fly over the keyboard and just let the words flow. Don’t worry about logic, facts, style, grammar -- don’t worry about anything but getting the words out as fast as possible. 

The time to let the Internal Critic back in the room is when you begin editing your work. However, even then you should keep a tight leash on him. An out of control Internal Critic can make the editing process a nightmare, leading to those horror stories of authors rewriting a single sentence hundreds of times. 

I’m trying to control the Internal Critic, but it’s an ongoing process. He still sneaks back into the room at times when I’m trying to write. However, I’ve made it clear that he’s not wanted, and I’m trying to banish him entirely. 

Down with the Internal Critic!

How To Deal With The Monster Under The Bed

“How can you write a love story and then turn around and write about blood and guts?” a reader recently asked me. “Do you like to be scared?” 

I don’t write horror because I like to be scared. Maybe the answer is that if I’m going to be scared, I’d rather scare myself than have someone else do it. Or, maybe I’m trying to work out some issues buried deep within my subconscious. Or, maybe I just enjoy the adrenaline rush from a good scare. 

All I know is that true horror has nothing to do with blood and guts. True horror hits you where you live, in the subconscious. It’s the reason why you’ll avoid going down in the basement when you’re alone, because you know there is SOMETHING waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Why you won’t look under the bed in the middle of the night because you know there will be a pair of big red eyes staring back at you. Why the closet door HAS to be shut when you go to sleep.

Horror stories have their uses, believe it or not. They can make you feel better about the lousy job you have or that miserable creep who cut you off in traffic today. They make the everyday hassles of life just a little easier to bear. After all, going down in the pit of darkness for a period of time will make you face the light of day with a little more gratitude.

And when the horror is written down, it’s contained and under control. Writing horror lets me face the shadows and the monsters under the bed, to cage them in my words. 

And that’s the best way to deal with monsters.