It depends on the kind of person you are, but I think everybody has an inner critic.  What you’re doing kind of determines how much you might hear from him, like when I’m just sitting on the couch watching tv and rotting, you know, you might not encounter it much, because watching tv is easy.  But if you ever try to do something like write, you will hear quite a lot, sometimes for me anyway, almost to the point where I can’t even stand to read what I’ve done.

     Sometimes when we care a lot about something, like writing well and beautifully, we think we need to know everything there is to know about what makes beautiful writing first, so then we know just what to do.  But the trouble with that is if you really do you homework now you have some of the greatest metaphors, cadences, and plots stirring around in your head.  And as soon as you dare to write something of your own, they will all come rushing to the forefront of your brain to take a seat in their black robes and judge you.

     A while ag I got this Great Courses project taught by a professor at brown university on great American literature.  (this was a mistake, but still interesting) and I remember thinking,  

     “well this guy knows so much about great literature, with all that expertise, he knows just how to write great literature of his own, I wonder what he has?”  

     By the way of original fiction, he didn’t have much.

     And the reason why is that he knows so much about the “greats” it makes it really hard to write something of your own.  

     But I’m not gonna spend this whole (and my first) post complaining about how hard stuff is.  What’s the solution to all this?

Write the worst story you can think of.

     Whatever comes to mind, it doesn’t matter, just write something.

 And you find its not as hard as you thought.

     Write about picking up interesting objects in parking lots, write about the most cliché things, just so you   know exactly what to do.  Anything.

     I remember thinking a year ago that the existence of an internal voice telling you everything you do is never good enough was a good thing, as long as he is educated, so the things he says are actually valid.  He (or she)  ;) could be a great asset, but the trouble is it could be the thing that suffocates anything you try to do out here.  You can beat him by just throwing your garbage in his face and watching him eat it.

Thank you.