The Writer’s Inner Critic Part II: Stop Horrifying and Start Writing!
People don’t just get angry. They contribute to your discomfort. -Albert Ellis
The inner critic can be the writer’s worst enemy. Every time we sit down to work, he feeds on our insecurities, reminds us of past failures, and criticizes everything we put on paper.
Until now you have probably thought, like most people, that the ominous whispers of the Critic must be eliminated so that you can try to get back to work. But shaking them is the worst thing you can do, because you’re not dealing with them. And that means they will come back.
But you know what. That is why you are reading this article.
Imagine a room with a floor that “settled” too much and now everything is tilted toward the center. If you drop a basketball on the ground, it will roll to the center. You can push it into the wall, but as soon as it loses momentum or hits the wall, it will roll back.
Now imagine yourself sitting right in that sunken spot in the middle and imagine ten basketballs. If they agree with you, it’s hard for you to write, so you have to push them away. Even if it’s a very large room and the basketballs are quiet, repeatedly pushing ten basketballs will prevent you from doing much typing. You’d better tackle the problem head-on: pick up the basketballs and get them out of your way.
The Critic does the same thing as those basketballs. It keeps you so busy trying to avoid it that you don’t do much.
So let’s talk about how to pick it up and get it out of the way.
learn to listen
The activities that follow are based on the work of Albert Ellis, the man whose quotes appear in this article, and Aaron Beck. Both men believe that irrational and distorted thinking is the real cause of most problems.
Ellis believes that we make ourselves miserable with three main “shoulds”:
* I must do well or I’m no good * You, louse, must treat me well or you’re worthless and deserve to roast in hell * The world must give me exactly what I want, precisely what I want, or it’s a horrible, horrible place (1)
Meanwhile, Beck has come up with a long list of distorted thinking patterns including:
* Overgeneralization: Seeing a negative event, such as receiving a rejection letter, as evidence of a larger pattern: You are a failure across the board * All-or-nothing thinking: There is rejection/failure and acceptance/success, and nothing in the middle * Emotional reasoning: you feel like a failure, so you must be one
DIGGING
The first thing you’re going to do is spend some time writing down all the nasty things the Critic says to you. People often say, “It makes me feel bad and I want it to go away, and you want me to pay more attention to it?”
Yes, that is exactly what I want you to do.
Here’s why: you have to know your enemy to fight him. Until you can hear all of his insults, you won’t know when or how to fight back.
Once you start paying attention, you’ll notice that the Critic knows what things will make you feel worse and repeats them more. Part of what makes him so virulent is that he knows your deepest insecurities and fears, and that’s what he uses against you. He is successful because you are afraid that those things are really true.
Worse yet, it’s stealthy enough that most of the time you don’t consciously hear what it’s telling you. You’ve been listening to him for so long that you hardly notice his voice. Instead, you assume that your reactions or fears are based on objective reality.
Especially since he uses insults that are hard to defend against. For example, it’s hard to argue with “You’re not creative enough” because it’s hard to define what is really creative enough.
EXERCISE 1: ABC
Our secret weapon: the ABC model.
We use a table for our assignments in CBT. There are 5 columns, which we’ll label A, B, C, D, and E. For now though, we’re only going to worry about A, B, and C, so create 3 columns on your sheet of paper (you may want to flip the paper horizontally for more writing space) and label them A, B, and C.
If you’re the visual type, there’s a copy of this article with graphics for you to use as examples.
B stands for Beliefs
To start, write all the nasty things the reviewer says to you in column B. Even the things that seem small and silly. Be sure to include any sentences that use the Critic’s favorite “hot” words: should, shouldn’t, must, mustn’t, must, can’t, etc., words that make us feel trapped because we don’t leave room for alternatives. And sometimes the Critic uses memories or images, so he writes about that too. What is your critic trying to make you think or believe?
Ex: I don’t know why I bother sending inquiries, I always get rejection letters. Obviously I have no talent and I look stupid to everyone who sees my work. I should give up and admit that I’m no good.
Don’t be surprised if your list is several pages long!
For some people, this can be difficult. If you feel really angry, small, or sad while you’re working, that’s okay. In fact, the more difficult it is to write, the more important it is that you do it and the better it is working.
C stands for Consequences
while you work, write any emotions you feel in column C; that is, the emotional consequences of the beliefs in column B. Some statements may make you angry, some may make you sad, some may cause you anxiety. Just write it all down and don’t worry if you’re repeating the same emotions alongside different kinds of critical thoughts.
Ex: Desperate, depressed, hurt, angry, worthless
A means trigger event
Now. Every time you sit down to write, get “stuck” in your writing, worry about the time you’ve set aside to write, find ways to avoid your writing time, or make excuses not to write, you need to quickly go back and record what you were thinking in column B and how it made you feel in column C. Then in column A, write what happened to trigger thought and feeling. Did you receive a reject receipt? Did you see a writer on a talk show? Did you notice that your writing time was approaching?
Ex: Received a rejection slip
So you’re going to be cataloging three things every time you sit down to do this:
A means Triggering Event (what happened?) B means Beliefs (what you thought, what the critic told you) C means Consequences (how you feel)
A, activating events, contribute to C, consequences in our gut. But it is B, our belief system, our philosophy, that mainly, in large part, or certainly in large part, makes us feel and think the way we do. I should say behave like we do, especially in a disturbed way. We annoy ourselves. -Albert Ellis
Most people do better with the next part if they spend a week or two just doing the ABC part. We’re always itching to get ahead of ourselves, but getting ahead of ourselves can make it hard to get what we should out of the exercise.
What we’re going to do next with the D and E is put the Critic in its place.
EXERCISE 2: FROM
After spending a week or two recording your ABCs, you’ll add D and E.
D means dispute and E means evaluate effects