How the Inner Critic and Creative Anxiety Cause Writer's Block

The first time I ever heard about creative anxiety was in 2011 at Hollyhock, a learning/retreat centre here in British Columbian, Canada. I was sitting in a lecture by Eric Maisel who was teaching a class on the campus at the time. His lecture consisted of him sharing the top ten or twelve (I can't remember) tips for being a successful writer. 

I'll be honest, it seemed kind of gimmicky, but within half an hour, I definitely felt that he knew what he was talking about. Since that time, I've done some research, and discovered that Eric Maisel has written twenty or thirty books on writing, creativity and coaching. Not only does he have a Masters in creative writing, but he also has a doctorate in counselling psychology. 

Little did I know that day how lucky I was to be sitting in front of him, listening to the writing tips he'd discovered over his lifetime. To be honest, I don't remember most of them! In any case, the tip that stands out in my mind of all of the tips he talked about was one of the first. It went something like, "Master your creative anxiety." Something like that. 

He talked about how every successful, creative person has developed a method to deal with their creative anxiety; otherwise they can't possibly be successful. Another word for creative anxiety: writer's block. The dreaded monster so many of us struggle with. 

That tip stood out to me because I'd never heard it said that way before. To me it had always seemed like writer's block was a spiritual problem, a problem of character, willpower, or motivation. But Dr. Maisel was saying that writer's block was a psychological anxiety. This was a big shift for me. 

He listed all the reasons why being creative can cause anxiety, and I left that meeting with a renewed interest in overcoming my own very significant writers block: I'd been working on a novel for fifteen years already. 

A few years later, I was still working on my novel (still going, almost finished the first draft - YAY!).  I started up a writing group, and we discussed the concept of the inner critic. Many people in the group had similar experiences with the inner critic and how it blocked their writing and creativity. We decided to come to the next meeting with some materials to help each other overcome writer's block. 

Of course, I decided to see what Eric Maisel had to say, and found there were over ten books on the subject to choose from in my local library. In the end, I chose to share, 'Toxic Criticism' and 'Mastering Creative Anxiety' with the group. 

Basically, here's what I printed out for my group: 

In the book Toxic Criticism, Maisel talks about the inner critic in Chapter 4, called 'Silencing Self-Criticism'. 

He believes the inner critic is formed when we internalize criticism from outside, and calls that the "moment of translation," which is the moment between the external message (or situation or experience) and the internal reaction. His main point in this section of the book is that it is our choice to go from an unfortunate external situation/fact to an internal toxic criticism. 

Why we develop toxic inner critics

He gives three main reasons why we might develop an internal toxic critic, even thought it's harmful to us and our creative practice:

1. We think it's the honourable, or moral thing to do (we've been bad, very, very bad, so we deserve punishment!)

2. We think it will motivate us (we've been so bad, so very, very bad, and we better work extra hard to make up for it!)

3. It helps us avoid our real work (we're so bad, so very, very bad, and we'll never amount to anything – why bother!)

Stick with the facts!

To overcome this, he suggests 'sticking with the facts' – be honest, or truthful, but don't be critical. So you can sit with the fact, "I haven't written in weeks/months/years" but don't make any value judgements about yourself. For example, "so that must mean I'm not meant to be a writer." Or, "I'm a lazy cretin."

He also suggests writing a letter to your inner critic. Tell your inner critic to take a hike! Or you can write a letter to someone who once discouraged you from writing and go tell them to go to hell!

[btw, I've done this particular exercise a few times and I have to say, it really was excellent! I might try to find my letter and publish it later in this book.]

Another thing he suggests is that we should spend some time mastering our minds and gaining practice in overcoming anxiety. Maisel believes that the inner critic is rooted in anxiety, and developing strategies to overcome anxiety is one of the best cures for writer's block. 

In his book, Mastering Creative Anxiety, Maisel covers many of these techniques. He also talks about many causes of anxiety for writers. Here are a few:

Causes of creative anxiety

Just by it's wild, unpredictable nature, creativity can produce a lot of anxiety. The anxiety of being judged, of not producing enough, performance anxiety, anxiety of failure, or being required to make decisions, etc. Here are some main types of creative anxiety:

1. Anxiety of creating or not creating: as a person who finds meaning in being creative, you will suffer anxiety whether you are creating or not, so "why not choose creating?"

2. Anxiety of mattering or not mattering: how can your stupid story matter when there are so many more significant things happening in the world? When there are so many better writers?

3. Anxiety of identity: when you're not being the creator you feel you ought to be, you can have anxiety about your identity. Who am I? Am I a writer, or not?

4. Anxiety of the creative life/surviving: how will I pay the bills? is this sensible?

5. Anxiety of choosing: Will my character go here, or go there? What is her name? Should I write a novel, or a short story? All these decisions, I need to make the right one!

6. Anxiety of process (fear of missing out): If I focus on this one project, then I won't have time to do all of these other things I really, really want to do.

7. Anxiety of ruining: I'm going to fuck this story up, I probably made the wrong decision back there.

8. Anxiety of failure: No one is going to read this and like it! Oh my god, what am I thinking – seriously! I can't share this with my group – they're not going to like it!

Ways to overcome creative anxiety

He gives lots of ways to overcome anxiety, including meditation, breathing techniques and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques, but my favourite of all of them is the first – called 'Existential Decisiveness'.

Existential decisiveness

"Indecisiveness about what matters, about whether you personally matter, about whether meaning resides over here or whether it resides over there, and about what constitutes the right life for you breeds anxiety. When you tackle these issues directly and become existentially decisive, you become less anxious. The first step in becoming existentially decisive is returning the control of meaning to you by asserting – and really believing – that you are in charge of the meaning in your life."

In other words, you need to decide that writing gives your life meaning and to hell with all the outside and internalised voices telling you otherwise. 

On that note, after the lecture, I asked Dr. Maisel what he thought about the fact that I'd worked fifteen years on a book. I asked him what he thought that meant. I wanted him to tell me, "Keep at it, it must be an amazing book if you've given your entire creative life to it." But he didn't say that. 

You know what he told me? He told me it was probably better I put that book away and I was unlikely to finish it if I hadn't finished it in fifteen years. Wow, that made my heart sink. 

Well, that was my own personal lesson in existential decisiveness! I had to decide that my book is meaningful to me, and to hell with what Dr. Maisel thinks! haha!

More Reading

Mastering Creative Anxiety: 24 Lessons for writers, painters, musicians, & actors from America's Formost Creativity Coach. By Eric Maisel.

Making Your Creative Mark: Nine keys to achieving your artistic goals. By Eric Maisel.

Living the Writer's Life: a complete self-help guide. By Eric Maisel.