Crucify the Critic

Too busy, mustn't stop to blather on about how far behind etc. But here is a poem I wrote in the late eighties which might be of help to all of you struggling NaNoWriMos:

___________Crucify the Critic

To write and not worry if all is spelled right,
To write and not think of the good and the bad of it,
To write and not judge, neither budge
A finger to backspace or erase,
Thinking only of white space,
Fingers flying like birds, to fill it with words-
With thoughts sublime or absurd,
With plots simple or complex,
With dreams shallow or deep,
With observations, inspirations, aspirations,
To make someone-if only me-laugh or weep,
To make their brows perplex,
To slake their verbal thirst
For soothing nouns and zesty verbs.
Wandering solitary in thicketed woods,
Wooing amid airy leaf-lace that enchanting face,
That muse, unnamed, neglected, un-embraced, until
That harassing harpy who begrudges-even sabotages-
The art of it, is banished from the heart of it.
So crucify the critic writer, and write!

(c) 1988 by Joy Renee

And for good measure here are a couple of tips for banishing the critic during that critical creation stage:

1. Use the Zoom function of your word processor to make the font too small to read.
2. Make the font the same color as the background.
3. Shrink the window of your word processor so that only a couple lines of type are visible.
4. Wear a blindfold.
5. Writing by hand? Place a piece of cardboard or construction paper over the lines above the line you are writing.

Numbers 4 and 5 were the tricks I used before the era of word processors--pre 1987 for me.

For those of us plagued by perfectionism the only rule worth following is the one ignored by Lot's wife: keep going and never look back.