The first thing that troubles my students about writing is the idea of it. They’ll have to sit down, sit still, concentrate, produce, be judged by standards they don’t always understand.

Let’s look at these one at a time.

The first hurdle is getting started. Most of them aren’t natural writers, aren’t particularly interested or drawn to the written word and they don’t even want to start. I consider myself a writer, aspire towards a career of it, and even I find it hard to sit down. Especially if I let my practice slip. Just getting started is the first, not insignificant hurdle.

The second part is sitting still. Staying with it. I’ve had students in my conferences tell me that they may find a good idea or come in with an exciting concept, but run out of steam after maybe five minutes. Other things grab their attention, compete for their time. They could be doing literally anything else. I get this one too. Concentration is a muscle, however, and can be strengthened. Lifting weights, or swimming laps, or shooting a hundred free throws isn’t a lot of fun either, but we get better the more we do. So it’s a lack of practice more than anything else that make this part hard. Also, each of us has different conditions under which we work best. Some like to work in public. Some like a darkened cave. Some like music. I think learning to write, especially creatively, means developing ritual. A place, a time, a set of moves or environmental controls that make the condition for writing possible.

If we can create that space, honor it and develop it, then we produce almost by accident. But there is a great force that weighs us down, tears our concentration, destroys our productivity. This is the greatest block my students tell me of, and we call it judgement.

Judgment comes in many forms, but the most powerful, the most impairing, is their own. Inside each of us sits the Critic, that voice that says, “this isn’t good, you aren’t good at this, why don’t you stop now? You’re embararssing yourself.” This voice has been strengthened and rewarded by years of current-traditional teaching which prioritizes analysis, structure, so-called objective measures of “correct” writing. So they know, more or less, what “good” writing looks like, and are pretty well-convinced that they can’t replicate it. Every time they start, there is the critic, telling them it isn’t good. And because the critic is always reinforced, rewarded and encouraged by their teachers, they believe in it, can barely if ever get past it.

I feel for them. There is nothing more stifling than an overfed Critic. But what I tell them is to set that voice aside. Ignore it or push back against it. Create first, I tell them. Write badly. Write weird and crazy. Later, there will be time for the critic. There will always be more time for the critic.