Your Worst Critic

As I send On Falcon's Wings out for reviews, I realize that anything others will never be as harsh as the comments from my worst critic: me.

Last week, my friend Anita had a great blog post, Writers Are Mad. Apparently, there is scientific proof for this in that those who are creative have similar brain structures to people who have schizophrenia. Who knew? Well, I for one am happier upon hearing this news, as it's brought me a step closer to understanding the madness within. Nice to know that when I tell people I have a voice inside my head, I may not be so far off the mark.

Stop shaking your head like I'm crazy. I ain't crazy. You know what I'm talking about. It's that little voice inside your head that nags at you to do certain things sometimes, usually things you don't want to do, but you really should do? On the other hand, which I think is even worse, it loves to berate you when you do something and you do it completely wrong - sound familiar? Well, my inner voice comes with a little bit too much sarcasm and a great deal of perfectionism, that’s absolutely over the top. It is a ruthless, tireless and frankly, tiresome taskmaster, and God help me when I make a mistake! I literally never hear the end of it.

Honestly, sometimes I wish that little inner voice would just SHUT. UP. Why must it nag me in the middle of the night with "Hey! I know exactly how to do that last chapter. Get your lazy butt up! Let's write or revise!" So what, if I need to get a good night's rest before work the next day? Inner critic wants to write. Just when I think a paragraph or chapter is perfect, here comes that voice inside my head again. "You know it's not good enough. That's total crap! You know you can make that sentence / paragraph / chapter better, so get off your ass and do it." Damn. Why can't it just be happy with the first couple of drafts of a story or just go away altogether? Seriously, I'm getting real sick of my inner critic working me overtime.