WRITER'S BLOCK: NOTICE YOUR INNER CRITICAL VOICE

The more clutter I have cleared, the more light hearted I have been feeling.  Clearing this clutter has been leaving my mind freer to focus on the now, on the present.  I do not have to see myself as procrastinating in cleaning up clutter  — because I'm not.  There are still things that need to go, but I am scheduling them.

So, what does all this clutter cleaning have to do with my writing?  Well, I was doing my daily journal writing and the topic was about cleaning up clutter and about not knowing what to write about.  And then I heard my own inner critical voice chastizing me for not knowing what I wanted to write about.  And, hearing that voice told me that I needed to write about that critical voice.  How I hate the tone of that voice!

Now, as I write, I find the power of that voice diminishing.  I know it has a place in my writing life.  It alerts me to what I need to concentrate on.  How I wish it would be gentler.  But, critical voices cannot, by their nature, do that.

So,what I learn over and over is to focus on what the inner critical voice wants to tell me that's of value for me, and bypass the unpleasant… sometimes even horrific… style it uses to talk to me.

Today, it was clear to me that my inner critical voice wanted me to let my readers know that it does not mean to harm us writers, but rather to alert us to something we need to pay attention to.

What is your inner critical voice alerting you to today?  What is it that you can take from the inner critical voice without being defeated by its tone?