You Know Your Inner Critic, But What's an Inner Fan?

And why and how does cultivating yours really help your writing?

In this week’s Ask Me Anything Chat, supporter

Heather Chadwick

asked this excellent question:

Is there anything to be said for trying to nurture an ‘inner fan’ who might be heard occasionally above the noise of the inner critic? And if there is, where do I start? S/he wouldn’t have to be uncritically admiring. The occasional ‘you’ve really nailed it there’, or ‘only 20,000 words till the end’ would be good.

And the first thing that struck me is that though I’ve blogged about Inner Critics and Inner Editors, and how the Must-Write Demon and the Anti-Writing Demon are in many ways each other’s evil twin, this idea has never occurred to me - and I think it’s genius. As I said in reply,

I absolutely do think that it’s worth cultivating some balance to the Inner Critic that has been wired into so many of our brains.