I had the opportunity to talk to several writers this past week, which is always great fun. As it does on occasion, the conversation turned to dealing with the wild disparity between the Critical Voice and the Creative Brain, which I’m naming that way because the Critical Voice can sometimes get mouthy and the Creative Brain can internalize itself so intensely that it disappears. Whatever, right? At the end of the day, both the Critical Voice and Creative Brain are toddlers who can act out in unexpected and bothersome ways.
Anyway, sometimes the conversations I had with these writers came cloaked in the idea of being “Stuck.” Other times it came in the form of the old “writing fast, vs. writing slow” debate—and, of course, we also had the conversation about editing and whether it was needed (or better, how it was needed).
But really, they were all about the Critical Voice and its relationship to the Creative Brain.
I suppose that’s not surprising because the writers were in town to take a craft class from Kristine Kathryn Rusch, half of the Kris and Dean (Wesley Smith) combo. And a large part of Kris and Dean’s platform is built on the idea of holding your Critical Voice as far away as you can while plowing through your work with the Creative Brain in charge. In their world, if you give the Critical Voice a moment it takes the day. Which isn’t wrong except where it isn’t right. If that makes sense.
The Critical Voice can be a real bully. It can be caustic. Kris and Dean are not wrong. Sometimes that bully needs more than considerable oversight.
On the other hand, the Critical Voice is also extremely valuable. Critical Voice is about judgement. It’s about understanding what you’re doing and making choices that make sense. The Creative Brain, when left to its own devices, can be … let’s say … scattered. We need them both. And, for my creative process, I really can’t separate them so precisely that I can send one to their room while I work with the other.
Unfortunately, as noted above, they are both toddlers in predisposition.
At one point in one of the conversations I said something like: “Well, for me, that’s kind of an 80/20 rule.” Then, as I am known to do, I went on to ramble a bit before getting to the point. My point, though, was this: In my process, it is actually quite rare that I am fully in the Creative Brain. It’s very rare that I’m just writing along with the carefree wind blowing in my hair, throwing ideas down right and left and becoming amazed at my own internal dreams. I say this as a mostly “pantser,” meaning that I write into the dark most of the time—which has a tendency to be seen as an exercise in letting the Creative Brain free. But in my process, both of those two toddler siblings—Critical and Creative—are riding shotgun with each other at all times. When I am working at my peak, my Creative brain is leading the charge—at least while the story is being laid down. But the critical voice gets a say. It can raise its hand at any moment and note when it sees something that is truly just not right. “I must object,” I can hear it call sometimes. “That is not right.”
When that happens, a piece of me needs to step in and decide if, emotionally, I need to stop and do some fixing up, or whether to just note the objection and let the Creative Brain go on unabated.
Sometimes I stop. Others I don’t. It’s all good.
It is literally impossible, I think, for me to do it any other way.
Of course, we’re talking here about the “first draft,” but, in reality, since I “cycle” all the time my “first draft” is also my second, third, and fourth drafts. That’s a thing, right? “Cycling” is essentially letting the Critical Voice in just a little while at the same time loading up the Creative Brain.
The point is to have fun, remove anxiety, and do work that I think is cool.
Doing it this way, when I’m finished I’m generally proud of the story, which means I rarely need a deep-dive second pass into the guts of its inner workings. Usually this results in a moderately quick pass with the Critical Voice in charge—but with the Creative Brain sitting there and objecting at times. “Do NOT cut that,” it will say as the Critical Voice is fiddling with the text. And when things are good at that stage the Critical Voice will step back, nod, and agree that, “yes, that part is pretty danged cool.”
And the Critical Voice will leave it alone.
That alone helps with my emotional wear and tear as a writer because nothing is more stultifying than a heavy duty dive back into a story that I broke a month ago but didn’t have time or patience to fix at the moment.
Totally no fun.
Enter, The Babysitter
What this means is that I’ve created a third entity in my brain. It is not the Creative Brain, nor is it a Critical Voice, except in that—when things are going well—this third entity is harsh on whichever of the two toddlers has gotten themselves out of line.
The Creative Brain can, for example, be riding along quite silently on that last pass (which is the realm of the Critical Voice), and suddenly jump up to say “Oh, my! I’ve got this great idea!” and suddenly make my fingers itch to write another ten thousand words on a side story that, while interesting, is not relevant to what I was doing.
I think of this third entity as The Babysitter.
It’s first job is to keep both toddlers alive and healthy as they work through the project together. Its second job is to keep the project humming along. The Babysitter is the judge, really. It’s their job to allow or overrule objections made by the toddler not in charge, or, really, to crack the whip and say “get along, children, or I’m going to tell on you when Ron gets home.”
I think this works because, for the most part, when things are going right, my Creative and Critical natures do just fine for me. When the project is humming along, the Critical Voice can often say…”oh, wow, that really is pretty cool. Just tweak it because, you know, you called the dude’s eyes blue a chapter back,” and my Creative Brain is generally quite happy to go change green to blue, and then move on. In fact, sometimes that change even helps the Creative Brain stay in its proper zone. When things are going right, the two siblings get along just fine. When it’s going right, each of them admires the other for what they bring to the table, and the project is even better for it.
At those times, the toddlers become adults, and the Babysitter can set back and play on their phone or whatever Babysitters do when sailing is smooth.
And that, my friends, is great fun.
When things are not so good, though—say when the Critical Voice is mouthing off to its fullest extent and doing its best to gum up the works, when the critical voice is telling me I missed something, or worse, when the Critical Voice is even stepping outside the project to question the very nature of my life as a writer, well … that’s when the Babysitter is expected to raise up in their full fury and scold the offending bully. The Babysitter is a full-bodied project manager, after all. The Babysitter has a goal and a time limit. They brook no bull hockey from either of the toddlers if that bull hockey is getting in the way.
So, yes, that’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.
Like all writers, I have a Critical Voice. I also have a Creative Brain. Unlike some, apparently, I cannot totally separate the two.
And so I have this third thing.
The Babysitter.
Which is there to keep the process humming along just fine, Thank You Very Much. And, as some might say, Hell hath no fury like a Babysitter scorned.