The inner critic.
You may know it well.
It’s that voice inside that tells you all the things that are just awful about your writing (and everything else about you, for that matter).
It critiques. It picks apart. It prevents you from putting yourself out there.
It does all of this under the guise of protecting you. Protecting you from shame. Protecting you from yourself.
Recently, I’ve been going through an exercise of engaging with my inner critic.
Instead of shoo-ing her away, I’m taking a (literal) page out of Tara Mohr’s book, Playing Big, and trying to talk to her. (My inner critic, that is.)
I've come to find my inner critic to be a close cousin of imposter syndrome.
It’s the kind of thing many of us agree will likely never go away, so the best we can do is acknowledge it’s there and then do the thing anyway.
Start the novel. Post the article. Send the email. Scribble away.
Your inner critic may try to stop you, but that doesn't mean you have to listen.
What does your inner critic say about your writing? What do you want to say back?
Some people use their inner critic as a motivator, but I loved this little gem from a recent Author Q&A we had with writer, podcaster, actor and The Open Book Company's in-house Self-Publishing Concierge, Nicki Pappas. 👇
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