Monday, November 3, 2008

my inner critic

I roll over and squint at the clock perched on my nightstand. 4:32 a.m. A voice in my head tells me I’m crazy to get up this early. It’s cold. And dark. Besides, I’ll never finish a novel in a month, no matter how early I get up. Who am I kidding? And what if I do finish? It will probably be crap.

But I get out of bed anyway. I tell the voice in my head to shut up and I turn on the coffee pot and sit down at my laptop to read the last few pages of what I wrote yesterday. Some of is pretty crappy, but not all of it. I resist the urge to delete it all and just pick up where I left off.

My confidence level grows with each word, and after my hour-long writing session this morning, I’m at just over 7,000 words.

I can do this.

Which makes me wonder, what else could I do if I simply ignored that voice in my head? The one that says I’m not good enough? Not smart enough? Not deserving enough?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

not only are you good enough and smart enough but doggone it, people like you! you can do this - some of my most productive time is those wee early morning hours - my head is clear and the kids are still asleep. keep writing and keep blogging - I love reading your progress! suzy

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I often feel like telling that voice in my head to take a hike, too. Keep plugging away! Good luck!

Llama Momma said...

Suzy -- You are such an encouragement to me. Thank you!! Isn't it amazing how much we can get done when those kids are asleep? It's crazy. Makes me wonder what I was doing all of those years when I didn't have kids...

Stacey -- it's a great exercise to shut that critical voice down. It's truly amazing what we can do when we believe we can do anything. :-)

everydayMOM said...

The voice in the head is definitely the one thing that stops most people from achieving their goals. Great job telling it where to go!
There is absolutely no reason you can't write a novel in a month. Seriously. You're going to do it, and I bet it will be great! Can't wait to hear about it!

megs @ whadusay said...

You go girl!

C said...

I want to do it, too, but I have yet to finish reading a book I have to blog about in just TWO WEEKS for a book tour.

But I really, really, REALLY want to do NaNoWriMo one year, if it kills me.

And it may.

L.L. Barkat said...

oh yeah... really good question.

Hey! I'm glad to hear you are writing. :)

Erin Moore said...

You can do it! Last year I finished writing my book because my dog couldn't adjust to daylight savings and had me up at 4am for two weeks.

I struggled with the same feelings of this is crap, I love this thing. What is it about writing that makes us schizo? I thought writing was suppose to be therapeutic.