My name is Garye Maraboto (ga-ri-éh ma-ra-boh-toh) and I’m a student on the Creative Writing MA here at Brighton. I’m currently doing a residency for the Centre of Arts and Wellbeing with the goal of exploring and understanding why writing and creating can sometimes feel like an uphill battle. In a series of three blog posts, I have been looking at procrastination, negative emotions and working with the mean inner critic that lives in each of our heads. In this last entry, I’ll provide you with some practical exercises that you can implement to help you quiet down your inner critic and get right into your creative practice.
Acknowledging your inner critic
Welcome to the final entry! Now that we’ve looked into procrastination, what causes it and the lengths our inner critic will go to fuel our imposter syndrome, it’s time to think about motivating our creativity.
So far, we have learned that negative emotions are not always a bad thing, and that we have all experienced the voice inside our heads that can sometimes try to hinder our process. Now what?
Let’s begin by addressing that inner critic of ours. In Conversations on Creative Process, Dr. Jess Moriarty suggests finding five obstacles your inner critic puts up, she mentions lack of motivation and feeling like a fraud as two things she struggles with[1]. Here are some examples of what mine says:
- No matter how hard you try, there will always be ways in which your work can be improved. If you can’t get perfection, why bother?
- What makes you think anyone cares about what you have to say?
- Your experiences havn’t even been that bad, you haven’t struggled enough to be giving anyone advice on how to overcome any creative blocks.
- Publishing is too competitive an industry, there’s no way you will ever catch any agent’s attention, let alone a publisher. Save yourself the embarrassment of trying.
- People are capable of creating entire worlds and languages for their stories yet, here you are writing over and over about…yourself. Do you think that’s good enough?
She’s a nasty one, isn’t she? Luckily, I have the power to respond! I’ve chosen to write a letter as I have a preference for the written word (could you tell?), where I directly address the voice. This method allows me to feel as if I’m in a dialogue rather than a battle, but you can choose to draw, collage, dance, or do anything your heart desires in response to these hurdles.
Dear little gremlin inside my head,
Please don’t talk to me that way, you’re giving me a headache and no amount of hate you spew at me will make my deadline go away. I find it’d be infinitely more embarrassing not having anything at all to show than having a first draft[2] that needs some work. Remember what Namjoon said:
Kim Namjoon, the leader of the group BTS, and a hugely influential figure for me[3].
I think my voice matters simply because I am a person who has had experiences, and every time I have seen another person talk about their experiences, no matter how niche, and resonated with them I am comforted and I find solace. Is that not the whole point of art? Sharing for the sake of sharing is good enough. Mind you, I also happen to think that +15 years of being an avid reader have rubbed off on me and I’m quite well equipped to deal with the written word.
It’s true that publishing can be cutthroat[4], there’s no denying that, but books are my passion, my one true love, the thing that makes me and defines me. This is the only option, and you know it as well as I do. Some dreams are worth going a little red in the face every now and again.
Lastly, good for fantasy writers. I’m not one of them, so what? Literary fiction is my favorite genre to read anyways. The grittier and more personal the better, why would I try to fit into a mold that does not belong to me?
I’m going to hold your imaginary hands and I’m going to refer you back to more wise words by BTS:
“멈춰서도 괜찮아
(It’s okay to pause)
아무 이유도 모르는 채 달릴 필요 없어
(There’s no need to run without knowing the reason)[5]”
Take a deep breath in and remember, I’ve got this. You’ve kept me up many a night worrying and showing me catastrophic scenarios that luckily never come true. And when crisis comes, you know me, I’ve proven time and time again I’m more than capable of solving any issue that has come my way. Please trust me a little more and take some time to relax. I appreciate your concerns and you wanting to keep me safe, but I’ve truly, honestly, got this. Go touch some grass.
Love,
Garye
Easier said than done? Absolutely, but confronting these thoughts head on honestly did make me feel a lot better, and I believe it could also take some weight off your shoulders if you gave it a try. If you don’t know where to start you could try asking it the following questions:
- What are you trying to protect me from?
- Why do you feel you need to be harsh and judgmental?
- Why do you think I cannot handle this?[6]
Let’s get to it!
Now that we’ve got that sorted, let’s start warming up that creativity. We’re breaking the ice with our practice with a really simple tool called “free writing”. According to Brian Evans-Jones for the blog The Poetry Place “Freewriting is a way of capturing your best thoughts and ideas, without any attempt to judge them or shape them. […] freewriting means writing as quickly as you can, attempting to record every thought that occurs to you as you write.[7]”
You can do this either by hand or on your computer. I personally find that digital is way easier as I’m much faster at typing than with pen and paper. All you have to do is pick a topic, set a timer and write away, pay no mind to grammar nor spelling, this is only a word vomit that will be fixed at a later stage. For this example, I’ve given myself three minutes and I’ve chosen the word ghost:
when I think of the word ghost the first thing that comes to mind is the lyric my beloved ghost and me sitting in a trre dying from tyalor swift’s folklore, that reminds me of mariana nriquez’s story in her latest colletion a sunny place for shady people where a couple go to a ghost town and find a painting of taylor being sold, ghost towns sound like home and also the hit song ghost town by adam lambert that came out in 2015ish when I was in high school, my friend Maggie used to like that kind of music, we don’t speak anymore so I guess she has become a sort of ghost herself which is quite sad because I really loved her i almost feel like carrie bradshaw writing for her column I couldn’t help but wonder, and just like that isn’t it crazy how this has nothing to do with ghosts anymore
Now that you have your raw material, you get to pick and choose anything that you think could be further developed. In my example I’ve highlighted the bits I like most and turned them into the following poem:
twenty thirteen
when I was young I had a friend
who showed me how to make a home
out of a sunny ghost town
last time we spoke was
a million years ago
does that make her
a ghost herself?
Margarita,
you know this has nothing to do with ghosts
And just like that, a draft is born! Naturally, over the editing process some things will evolve, change and be lost. It’s part of the process! The point of freewriting is to let your mind roam free and start finding the direction in which you want to take your piece. I personally swear by this technique and use it for almost every single poem I write.
Before I let you go, I want to include a few more writing exercises just for good measure, but remember, all of these are only supposed to be warmups! Remember not to spend more than fifteen minutes on these, they should serve as a tool to wake your brain up, not as yet another way to put off the work you actually need to do.[8]
- Write a piece of flash fiction using only one of the senses (touch, smell, sight, taste) for descriptions.
- Pick an object near you and write something about it. Who gave you that card you have stuck on the wall? What’s the story behind the family picture you have framed on your desk? If your headphones had a personality, what would they be like? Let your creativity run free!
- Write about your day as if you were writing a scene from a book. Describe the people you interacted with as characters, describe your morning routine, make the mundane magical.[9]
If you have made it this far, thank you very, very much for coming with me on this journey. I sincerely hope it has helped you look at your creativity and any blocks you might face in a more compassionate way, given you helpful tools to deal with your inner voice, and allowed you to get your creativity flowing. Thank you Jess, and everyone at the CAW for allowing me to write these entries for you. You can find my bookish endeavors on Instagram at @garye.epub. Until next time!
[1] Reading, C., & Moriarty, J., Conversations on Creative Process, Methods, Research and Practice: Feminist Approaches to Nurturing the Creative Self (1st ed.). Routledge, 2023 https://doi-org.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/10.4324/9781003286042
[2] Lamott, Anne. “Shitty First Drafts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Ed. by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005: 93-96.
[3] Bring the Soul. ‘Episode 5’, dir. by Jun-Soo Park, Bring the Soul: The Documentary Series (Seoul: Big Hit Entertainment, 2019), documentary episode.
[4] University of Central Lancashire. ‘How to Become a Publisher’, University of Central Lancashire, https://www.lancashire.ac.uk/articles/advice/become-a-publisher
[5] BTS. Paradise, from Love Yourself 轉 ‘Tear’ (Seoul: Big Hit Entertainment, 2018), Spotify https://open.spotify.com/intl-es/track/1YO4xJXhh9A1Feg9k8xuy2
[6] Andrea, ‘Writing Exercises: Getting to Know Your Inner Critic’, HeadBloom (17 June 2021) https://www.headbloom.net/inner-critic-writing-exercises/
[7] Evans-Jones, B. ‘Freewriting for Great Ideas’, Write Better Poems, https://www.writebetterpoems.com/articles/freewriting-for-great-ideas
[8] Sundeen, Abby. ‘Warm-Ups for Writers’, Sunny D Writes (Tumblr), https://sunnydwrites.tumblr.com/post/186804144202/warm-ups-for-writers
[9] Vranick, Lex. ’10 Writing Warm-Ups to Spark Your Creativity’, Write & Wine, 31 March 2023, https://writeandwine.com/blog/10-writing-warm-ups-to-spark-your-creativity
Bibliography:
Andrea, ‘Writing Exercises: Getting to Know Your Inner Critic’, HeadBloom (17 June 2021) https://www.headbloom.net/inner-critic-writing-exercises/
Bring the Soul. ‘Episode 5’, dir. by Jun-Soo Park, Bring the Soul: The Documentary Series (Seoul: Big Hit Entertainment, 2019), documentary episode.
BTS. Paradise, from Love Yourself 轉 ‘Tear’ (Seoul: Big Hit Entertainment, 2018), Spotify https://open.spotify.com/intl-es/track/1YO4xJXhh9A1Feg9k8xuy2
Evan-Jones, B. ‘Freewriting for Great Ideas’, Write Better Poems, https://www.writebetterpoems.com/articles/freewriting-for-great-ideas
Reading, C., & Moriarty, J., Conversations on Creative Process, Methods, Research and Practice: Feminist Approaches to Nurturing the Creative Self (1st ed.). Routledge, 2023 https://doi-org.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/10.4324/9781003286042
Lamott, Anne. “Shitty First Drafts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Ed. by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005: 93-96.
Murray, Nick, ‘Thinking about the Line: Poetry and the Art of Editing’, Penned in the Margins, 23 October 2013 https://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2013/10/poetry-and-editing/
Sundeen, Abby. ‘Warm-Ups for Writers’, Sunny D Writes (Tumblr), https://sunnydwrites.tumblr.com/post/186804144202/warm-ups-for-writers
University of Central Lancashire. ‘How to Become a Publisher’, University of Central Lancashire, https://www.lancashire.ac.uk/articles/advice/become-a-publisher
Vranick, Lex. ’10 Writing Warm-Ups to Spark Your Creativity’, Write & Wine, 31 March 2023, https://writeandwine.com/blog/10-writing-warm-ups-to-spark-your-creativity
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