Photo by Matthew Brady

The inner critic, that nagging voice inside the head that consistently ignores the old maxim if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all. Judgmental, cynical, reductive, irrational it can take a yeoman’s effort to keep it at bay, let alone ignore it completely.

The inner critic can be especially debilitating for a writer working on a new project, which is where I’m at the moment. I need to be able to spill my story on the page as messy as it might be and worry later about precision and refinement; those duties await me in the revision process. Ideally, the first draft is a safe place where mistakes are not only allowed they’re highly recommended; a place that should be anathema to the inner critic.

Should be, but oh how many times have I allowed my inner critic too much room at the table and yet it’s still elbowing me in my pride? More than I’d like to admit. However, and mercifully this does happen often enough I don’t have to write home about it, I am able to mute the son of a bitch and move freely through a writing session with nary a negative thought.

And so that provoked me to wondering this: What does my inner critic do when I ignore it? Well, luckily, my inner critic loves an audience, and was more than happy to write a guest blog addressing this very subject.  Please welcome, dear readers, my inner critic.

Yeah hi, I’m Bryan’s inner critic, who the hell do you think you are? Anyway, semi-interesting question he poses, though I definitely would have phrased it better and wouldn’t have spent 300 freaking words on an introduction, and my god, “nary a negative thought” Bryan? Kill me now.

Anyway, what do I do when I’m ignored? Well, think of it like you do your toys when you’re not at home. Yeah, they come to life, right, and have jolly adventures. Okay, except in my case when they come alive I am home and defenseless in bed against a relentless attack of miniature shivs and fire pokers.

That’s right, roughly translated this inner critic’s got its own inner critic to deal with. What’re you doing you lazy piece of subconscious? You just gonna let him ignore you like that? Get back out there, schmuck! Come on, get more aggressive on the sentence structure, he’s practically rubbing your face in it. Aw cripes he just ended another sentence with a preposition! And he’s laughing about it! I knew right away you weren’t gonna cut it. I told your parents, looks more like a salami than a sledgehammer. The kid who never took off his kid gloves! Oh sure have another danish, yep, eat your problems away. Num, num, num, good luck with the diabetes, moron!  

Okay. Yeah. Need to towel off after that one. Don’t feel sorry for me, though, most of the time I am able to mute the son of a bitch and toodle around in my cave with nary a–uh, never mind.

And what happens when I’m able to ignore that voice? What does an inner critic’s inner critic’s inner critic sound like? Man you don’t want to know.

Whaat?! You’re just gonna let it end the blog post like that? Disgrace! Last time I send a neuron to do a synapse’s job!