While I was working on my writing samples for a recent submission, I found myself wrestling with a particular sample. It came from the middle of a novel I am working on, and there were a lot of things that happened in the novel to get to where the sample began. I was conflicted on how to make this particularly fantastic section of writing make sense to anyone who might read it outside the context of the novel.
That's what I needed, I thought. Context. Put a little paragraph at the beginning to just set the stage for the writing sample.
The Central Authority, however, had other ideas. It wasn't surprising. The Central Authority always had other ideas, along with insults and put downs.
What I call the Central Authority some people call their inner critic, the inner judge. Certainly not the thing I call my conscious, because that at least seems neutral. No, the Central Authority thinks it runs the place, feeding my self-doubt, making me feel, for lack of a better term, like absolute shit and that I can't do anything right and why should I bother?
So the Central Authority thought that putting a context paragraph was a dumb idea. It insisted that I needed to shoehorn into the sample the information that would make the sample make sense, even though I felt that that would slow down the sample and take away from the sparkle that made it a great writing sample for a submission. But as usual, I listened to the Central Authority and spent two more whole days as I was running out of time for the submission window, to attempt to do what it wanted. When I was reaching critical mass.Against my better judgement.
When I was in college, and finals would roll around, I'd grind hard to get the best grade I could (nothing less than 100% would satisfy the Central Authority). I would study, long and hard, writing, copying, until I hit a wall. My brain was full, I was tired, and I knew if I didn't know what I needed to know by that very moment, I wasn't going to know it.
The Central Authority, however, would go into straight panic mode, stirring up my anxiety, requesting more caffeine and sugar, and demanding I go until the very last minute, cramming my tired brain full.
And that's where I was with the sample, but I knew that if I continued trying to do what the Central Authority said, I might just ruin it.
Those two days trying to do the Central Authority's bidding was painful as it goaded me on. You can't be done. It's not good enough. You're not good enough. You need to keep going until it's perfect.
This is what it felt like:
Can't Help Myself
Somewhere in the comments, it said that it took this machine three days of running 24/7 to break down, cleaning up its own 'blood' while bleeding out.
That's how the Central Authority works for me.
At the end of the second day, I was panicking, running out of time, feeling absolutely terrible about myself and writing and like I should probably just quit writing, because I couldn't get this one simple sample done. Those pages on their own were just fine, but no, the Central Authority had to be right. I must be doing something wrong.
I messaged my bestie, V, and this was our exchange:
And then I discovered the first rule of Be Autotelic. I was grossed out by the word 'rule'. The word 'rule' feels very contrary to creating for the sake of being creative. So I am going to call it a Gut Instinct.
Gut Instinct #1:
Trust your voice.
When I say voice, I mean writing voice. Totally different from the Central Authority. The writing voice is sometimes quiet and soothing, sometimes shouting and raucous, doing cartwheels as you try to get down what it is saying is part of the story before doing flips into the next section.
Trust what your voice is telling you to do, even if it breaks the rules. I know I just said rules are contrary to Being Autotelic, and they are, but when it comes to writing, you do need to learn some rules. Like how stories are structured and characters are created. Then after you learn the rules, you can break them. Evaporate them. Trust your voice.
Someone out there wants your writing. Someone out there is waiting for your writing. Maybe your writing is exactly what will make them feel seen, like there's someone else out there exactly like them, and for the first time, maybe they will see they aren't alone. And there is so much power in that.
But in order to do that, you have to break the rules you've learned, defy the Central Authority, and just create.
