Limit self-criticism in early drafts. This is the title chapter of Roy Peter Clark’s 48th tool, from his book on craftsmanship, Writing Tools, 55 Essential Strategies For Every Writer, and it was where I was introduced to an exceptional essay by Gail Godwin about writing (and more broadly, about creativity): The Watcher at the Gate.
Here’s an excerpt from this essay:
It is amazing the lengths a Watcher will go to keep you from pursuing the flow of your imagination. Watchers are notorious pencil sharpeners, ribbon changers, plant waterers, home repairers and abhorrers of messy rooms or messy pages. They are compulsive looker-uppers. They are superstitious scaredy-cats. They cultivate self-important eccentricities they think are suitable for “writers.” And they’d rather die (and kill your inspiration with them) than risk making a fool of themselves.
Gail Godwin
Internal Watchers, who would rather die and kill? How similar they sound to Steven Pressfield’s Resistance :
RESISTANCE WILL KILL YOU —
Steven Pressfield
If you don’t believe me, look around at friends and family who have talent and ambition in spades … but are drinking, doping, abusing themselves and their loved ones, wasting their lives because they can’t get out of their own way and do the work they were put on this planet to do. Trust me: you will NEVER, NEVER achieve your dreams until you learn to recognize, confront, and overcome that voice in your head that is your own Resistance.
These descriptions are from two prolific authors, both who write about writing, and both who are warning me about the mortal danger of the internal voice of doubt.
I ignore them at my peril. Thank you!