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How to play nice with your inner critic.

In Hilde Østby’s lovely book on creativity, she writes that children begin to develop their inner critic around the age of six. That it’s here, where a child creates their own personal standard for what a good drawing is and then evaluate their work regardless of what their parents say about it.

Before the age of six, children will show pictures they have drawn to anyone and everyone who will pay them mind, without considering the response they might get. But, eventually, they become concerned with feedback and experience self-doubt.

Contrary to common belief, possessing an inner critic is a good thing.

The French novelist, polemicist and physician Louis-Ferdinand Céline has a fabulous line on the correlation between great art and self-doubt…

“The beginning of genius is being scared shitless.”

Writers and artists who don’t doubt their work are either delusional or lying through their teeth.

However, while an inner critic is necessary for us to develop taste and create art that exceeds it, we must learn to turn it off during the creative process.

The most effective way I’ve learned to do this is through a writing process called stream-of-consciousness made famous by writer and poet, Jack Kerouac.

Kerouac’s novel On The Road was written stream-of-conciousness in long, manic bursts over a 21-day period on a 120 foot role of typewriter paper.

When I write stream-of-conciousness, I do away with periods and instead break up my thoughts with semicolons and apostrophes. I always write long-hand and challenge myself to keep my hand moving so that my inner critic doesn’t have the chance to chime in.

Here’s what I wrote this morning stream-of-conciousness…

“

don’t think twice, it’s alright; blue car rushing by my office window; blue bird; june lying on my cow skin rug; sunlight burning the morning through my window; more passing cars; loud then hushed; june gnawing on her bone; bone crackling like fallen logs in a fire; ain’t no use to sit and wonder why; the black stetson cowboy hat kace’s grandfather gave me fell off the top corner of my reading chair; bull-riding; 8-seconds, 7-seconds, 6-seconds, 5-seconds, 4, 3, 2, 1; this is ground control to major tom, you’ve really made the grade; woman walking little white dog, little white dog now taking shit; i’m writing on a hardwood desk made by my father out of a rafter he pulled out of an old tobacco factory he now calls home; lucky strikes; marilyn monroe; happy birthday, mr. president; european starling perched on the red fence outside my window; shakespeare bird; it’s cute when kace says, “shakespeare bird”; is that how you spell shakespeare; money tree on my desk––money trees are the perfect place for shade and that’s just how i feel; the eczema on my forehead is itching; i hate myself; i’ve still got sleep in my eyes; funny how two eyes look like you are just looking through one; i’ve got to cut my grass; razor grass; shaving with razor grass; i’ve got to cut my hair too; green mustang sleeping on the street corner; sitting still; i want some stumptown coffee; good luck; luck is like warmth from a fire, it curls up in your bones and lingers for a while; love is this way too; idle hands knit fables that drown dandelions; boquets of wildflowers; that’s not how you spell bouquets; maybe it is; red, blue, yellow, white, green, so much green; thumbing through my greenbacks, swearin’ i made more; colter wall; great wall of china; crouching tiger, hidden dragon; fortune favors the bold; i really want some stumptown coffee; i wonder if kace is up yet; i miss japan with her; kyoto, osaka, tokyo, procari sweat; how come gatorade tastes like shit after you brush your teeth; keep mum; nothing left to say; another blue car by my window; another blue blurr; i’ve got a case of the blue blurrs reads prettier than sadness; silence.

”

Once you’ve exhausted yourself, then you allow yourself to read back through what you’ve written, from top to bottom, letting your inner critic separate the butter from the shit.

There are a few ideas from the above passage that my inner critic thinks has some potential––bone crackling like fallen logs in a fire, shaving with razor grass, green mustangs sleeping on street corners, etc––but what he was most drawn to is the correlation my subconscious made between sadness and the blue blurr of a passing car.

I might do something with that line.

The creative process is a delicate dance between the creative and the inner critic. We as creatives wants to create while our inner critics wants to judge what is being created.

It’s up to each of us to designate who is leading the dance and when.

Stream-of-conciousness is the writer or artist saying…

“Hey, inner critic, I know you want to lead but it’s not yet your turn. Shut up, take my hand and for godsake, trust me.”

By Cole Schafer.

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