hyper-criticism

jsgoddess · #1 12-20-2002, 08:35 PM

I have a problem with experiencing even limited success at writing because I slip easily into hypercritical mode, in which nothing I write can measure up to what I have already written.

It's been over a year since I could write poetry confidently. I am disconnected from my internal critic.

Is there a trick to work past this egotistical little problem? (I call it an egotistical problem because I find I can't bring myself to show others anything that I feel might tarnish my reputation.)

Julie

**theworm**[$] · #2 12-20-2002, 08:52 PM

Oh Julie. I'm sorry but the only way to really deal with this is to show you're writing to someone else. What's the worse that can happen - they'll say it's not the very best thing that you ever wrote? Maybe it is great! Right now you're not the best judge of your own work. Face your fear and share your work. The next thing that you write may not be your best, but it'll get your creative juices flowing. Don't stifle a gift!

jsgoddess · #3 12-20-2002, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by theworm
Don't stifle a gift!

"Stifle" is a pretty good description, Wormie.

For the most part, it isn't that I have written things and won't show them to anyone, it's that I haven't written because I keep preempting myself with a weird sort of defeatism. "Well, I could write that, but it's been done before." Or something similar. And since I always write in my head and don't put things on paper until they are nearly formed, and since I can't seem to get my brain over the hump to start forming because I'm dismissing things before they have a chance to percolate, I don't know quite what to do.

It's like I have a short-circuit or something!

Julie

**theworm**[$] · #4 12-20-2002, 09:02 PM

May I suggest just writing something, then. You don't even have to show it to anyone if you hate it. Just get something on paper - even if it's the weakest poem you've ever written. I'm sure there are a lot of beautiful words up there in your brain. You need to put a crack in that damn that you put up, and let a few of them come through. Even if it's just a trickle. Eventually, they'll all start pouring out, again, and you'll be able to enjoy writing again. It's ok to write crap once in a while - you don't have to share or publish it!

brian_igo · #5 12-20-2002, 09:22 PM

I've wrestled with this problem for years. I've finally decided that it can't be beat, and the best I can hope is to find ways to work around it.

Some days stubborn, single-digit determination does the trick. Others it helps to switch genres. Sometimes picking up a Danielle Steele novel reminds me that not everything needs to be on par with Tolstoy and the Bard to bring happiness to a reader. (Or to put some $$$ into the writer's pocket.) On my best days, I am able to remember that my writing, like my life, is a work in progress. In both, if I'm not working (miserable as my efforts might be) there will be no progress.

And some days it still wins.

Brian

**AuntieEmma**[$] · #6 12-20-2002, 10:17 PM

Well, I'm into obsessive-compulsive assignments these days ... Maybe you could assign yourself the task of writing one poem a month or one a week or one a day -- whichever seems like a brisk pace to you, based on how much you used to write when you were writing the most frequently. First, that would force you to write a certain amount, and second, it would give you a built-in excuse to present to your internal critic -- you could say, hey, I'm writing so much, you can't expect everything to be top-notch.

Another trick is to try and disconnect writing from ego, or at least not have them bound so tightly together, by reminding yourself of all the reasons besides reputation that you want to write.

owling · #7 12-20-2002, 10:18 PM

Have you tried free-writing, Julie? Sometimes it can help to get one writing without thinking about it too much, and once you get writing often it's easier to keep going.

jsgoddess · #8 12-20-2002, 11:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AuntieEmma
Maybe you could assign yourself the task

Good grief! You mean I have to develop some discipline? Ack!

Quote:

Another trick is to try and disconnect writing from ego, or at least not have them bound so tightly together, by reminding yourself of all the reasons besides reputation that you want to write.

This is where things get dicey. I used to enjoy writing because it was something I felt I did well. Now that I no longer feel I do it well, I don't really enjoy it. But thinking that I once did it well makes me fell guilty for not doing it at all, so then I think about doing it and don't do it well, so I don't do it.

Er, did that make sense?

Writing poetry is pretty damned thankless, really. I don't know why I want to bother.

Owling said:

Quote:

Have you tried free-writing, Julie? Sometimes it can help to get one writing without thinking about it too much, and once you get writing often it's easier to keep going.

Because I do that "write in your head" thing, I've never been too successful at free-writing. But I'm going to try again.

Brian, you are supposed to tell me that for $19.95 you'll send me a pamphlet that will explain how to get past this issue. Of course, then you'd have to write a pamphlet that rivals Shakespeare... so maybe you made the right choice!

Julie

murasaki · #9 12-21-2002, 08:24 AM

Have you thought about joining a poetry reading/writing group?

When I lived on Okinawa, I went to the open mic poetry reading at a local bar on Saturday nights before I went dancing. You didn't have to read anything at all, you could read your own stuff, or someone else's stuff. I started out reading things I'd written in college, then progressed to reading things I'd written recently. I actually wrote a lot of poetry during that period. In that environment, I was inspired a lot and it was intellectually stimulating. And I also made some cool friends.

--naomi

owling · #10 12-21-2002, 09:15 AM

"The Writer's Path" and "Fast Fiction" are both pretty good at getting you to do the free-writing thing. TWP finally explained it in a way that actually made me understand the value of free-writing, which I hadn't understood until then.

As for the worry about whether or not it's been done before - in a sense, everything has been done before about 20,000 times over. But it doesn't matter. What matters is whether you can do it again in a way that people will find interesting.

Not long ago I had a long patch of writer's burnout - I've been freelancing since '95, and suddenly it just didn't seem at all fun any more. Nothing I wrote seemed any good. I read a lot of books... wrote some articles. Anyway, one of the things that most struck me (besides the freewriting thing) was this one lesson, which in hindsight seemed obvious but which I never understood: it's okay to make a mess and write "bad" things.

In a way freewriting is related to that, because the idea is that you do start writing and just keep writing, with no thought as to whether or not what you're writing is any good. Every writer writes awful stuff - it's okay to go ahead and do so. Just be willing to revise it afterward. (Where revision often means that the official first draft looks nothing at all like the rough draft - it might incorporate only a few ideas, or a single image, or whatever.) The idea is, if we don't give ourselves permission to mess up, then we restrict ourselves so much that we end up not creating anything at all.

Maybe that seems obvious. But to me it wasn't, so I'll share it in case it helps at all.

rich2003dm · #11 12-22-2002, 01:03 PM

Being a perfectionist and always needing to show only your best to the world can be a curse.

But what is really your best? Are you even the best judge of it?

I've only written for Epinions. Never tried to do it for real. But one thing I've learned is that I'm not the best judge of my own writing.

Some things I've written that I thought were among my "best," bombed miserably. Other stuff that I was really hesitant about posting, feeling that they weren't up to my own personal standards, proved to be among my greatest successes on Epinions.

The fact is that you never know how your audience will react to something until you put it out there. So the best thing for you to do is to write...and see what happens.

Yeah! It's probably all been done before. But not your way and in your words.

Rich

**pluckyduck** · #12 12-27-2002, 10:26 AM

Julie -

This is what killed me from ever being a writer for real and I haven't conquered it so I'm useless for advice.

I had raw writing talent and a love for it from the time I was very young. Faced with feedback from college professors that I had the potential to make a career from it, I did the natural thing and panicked and went into medical claims as a career instead.

I wasn't afraid of the work of writing, I was afraid of the mental torture. I wasn't afraid that I would never be good enough overall, but I knew that no single piece I ever wrote would ever be good enough. I get sick to my stomach every time I write anything, including a toaster review.

I'm relatively sure that real writers go through the same thing, they just have a higher tolerance level for torturing themselves than I do. Anymore, I publish an Epinion and call it "good enough for Epinions" and let it go.

No help, just, I feel your pain.

Andrea

**AuntieEmma**[$] · #13 12-27-2002, 03:13 PM

Quote:

I publish an Epinion and call it "good enough for Epinions" and let it go.

Heh. That's one of the things that drew me to Epinions in the first place. Years earlier, I had been suffering with massive writer's anxiety -- this was when I was trying to be a "serious writer" of fiction -- and pretty much gave it up. When I stumbled on Epinions, I thought, hey, this is easy, I can make a good impression here.

I'm thinking now that the key to getting over writing anxiety, or at least getting it down to a manageable level, is to not try to be a "serious writer" -- that is, to not take everything (especially oneself!!) so seriously.

By the way, when people start talking about raising the standards at Epinions, about setting the bar higher, I understand what they're saying and why they're saying it, but I do think, "Uh, oh. If that happens, there goes my playground!"

I think competition and high standards are double-edged swords. They can goad you to pull more out of yourself and to do your best work -- that's what I think the people who want higher standards at EP are hoping for -- but competition/high standards can also be stifling. Maybe it has to do with the particular person and what stage they are in life (there was a time when I was younger that I craved really difficult competition, but not anymore). Maybe it's a balance -- too little is no good, too much isn't good either. For me, anyway, when the standards seem too difficult, if I don't stop writing altogether, what happens is that my writing gets stiff -- everything is smooth on the surface, but I've worked it to death, and maybe there wasn't much life in there to begin with. Now I'm much sloppier on the surface, but happier overall with what I've written.

Julie, a few more thoughts --

-- Could you look at it in terms of a lifetime body of work? If you wrote, say, one poem a month, and out of all the poems you wrote, only one poem a year was any good, that would still add up, over a lifetime, to a significant body of good work (think about the Famous Poets in the anthologies -- a fair number of them are known for just a small handful of poems or even for just one single poem) -- and would give you the freedom to write badly eleven times out of twelve. That's a lot of wiggle room!

-- What about taking on another identity? I don't mean an outright lying whining-for-money false identity -- just another name, a penname or a screenname (or a new one if you're already using either or both of those), that could represent the more carefree part of your personality.

I think it's amazing how freeing that can be. Your "reputation" rests with your name (or current screenname, etc.) and a new name gives you a break from all that. You could put all the stuff that you're not so sure about, things you're afraid might hurt your reputation, under the new name, and not have to worry about how that will impact your reputation.

That was another thing that first attracted me to Epinions. Who was "AuntieEmma"? Nobody. A fictional name. Who cares whether a fictional name wrote well or poorly? I loved that, and was very protective of my privacy.

There is a short shelf life, though, with new names. After a while, I did start caring about what people thought of "AuntieEmma," even though AuntieEmma -- at first -- didn't even exist. And I've been through a lot of changes in how I've approached Epinions since then. But I think having that period of total anonymity was good, that it gave me a jump start.

And even now -- even though AuntieEmma has picked up some of her own baggage and is not nearly as carefree, or anonymous, as the day she was born (hatched?) -- there is still a benefit to the extent that I find it freeing to know that what I write isn't web-searchable under my real name.

-- Is everything you do with poetry on paper or screen? A lot of the impact of poetry, I think, is in the ear. Can you do readings anywhere? Do you have open mike readings where you are? That might give you a huge surge of new energy.

-- You said that you were involved in online poetry workshops. Maybe you're not burnt out on poetry itself, but on workshopping it?? My opinion is that workshops can be good learning experiences, but aren't meant to be life-long endeavors. Maybe there's a time when you can "graduate" yourself and move on?

Quote:

I used to enjoy writing because it was something I felt I did well. Now that I no longer feel I do it well, I don't really enjoy it. But thinking that I once did it well makes me fell guilty for not doing it at all, so then I think about doing it and don't do it well, so I don't do it.

Er, did that make sense?

Writing poetry is pretty damned thankless, really. I don't know why I want to bother.

For the money, of course!

Really, I do think it's critical to remind onself of the non-ego-related reasons for doing this.

I mean, go back as far as you have to -- all the way back to the Cat in the Hat, if necessary! -- to dredge up reminders of a time you took delight in poetry, before it got all bogged down in worries about reputation, etc.

Wow, I've blathered on a lot here. Obviously a subject near and dear to my heart.

**pageclot**[$] · #14 12-31-2002, 08:41 AM

Someone once pointed me to this lecture by Ted Berrigan which I loved. It's long, but consistently entertaining and useful to everyone, not just poets.

The "Incredible Masterpieces" Ted Berrigan lecture

P

jsgoddess · #15 01-25-2003, 07:11 PM

Well, anyone who was encouraging me just to write probably regrets it by now. I'm Epinionating at a high rate (at least for me).

And making sound files of my poems, which is an interesting experience.

Julie

owling · #16 01-26-2003, 08:29 AM

Excellent! Sounds like you're off and running again. Congrats!

Now I'm somewhat stuck, but I think getting going again is partially going to have to wait until our housemate moves out.

Redlass · #17 02-13-2003, 11:01 AM

Mind if I toss in some really belated thoughts on this topic?

Would it be helpful to see the writing you are currently doing as a means rather than an end?

In other words, write now even if it isn't fantastic. The writing that you do may work out some of the kinks you've developed or lead you to a path where what you write next will be great.

It's sort of like athletics. You have to do an awful lot of drills and practice to be able to make those great plays when the game is on. And a jaw-dropping game may be followed by a mediocre one, but all of them need to be played if you're going to be great.