Just write

Good morning, gentle readers. Welcome to Monday, to another fun-filled week of work and play and the mayhem that we call life.
A few years back when I decided to make a go of it as a writer, I had no idea how hard it would be, to sit down every day and produce something.  It's a real struggle.  What makes it worse is that, if you're like me, even when you produce something, you may not be satisfied with it.
Too often, I'll look at what I've just written and go, "This is utter shit." Then I delete it and take another stab at it.
A bit like this blog entry.
I've started it twice so far, thinking that it reads as whiny and a bit disorganized.  And then I realized that since the purpose of the blog entry was to share my writing troubles and doubts, what better way to illustrate my point than by just letting everything happen.
God. That last sentence was just awful. Wasn't it?
But I will not delete it.
I will not go back and start all over again because of that little nagging voice in the back of my head, my inner critic.  It is not a productive force.  We all have that nagging voice, that part of ourselves that criticizes everything we do or try to do.
"Why do you bother writing? Your stuff doesn't sell. It will never sell. Just give up and go read a book. You like reading books. You're so good at it. Much better than you are at writing them."
It whispers over my shoulder as I read what I've written.
"Oooh! What were you thinking when you wrote that? It's completely wrong. That character would never say something like that. You should rewrite that part when you do a proper edit. Or you could just delete that whole section right now and take ANOTHER stab at doing it right."
Ladies and gentlemen, writers are our own worst enemies.
I am not a proponent of volume writing, but maybe I should be.  Maybe sitting down and going, "Tonight I am going to write five pages!" would actually work.
It seems to work for a lot of other people.
Then, of course, the inner critic rears his ugly head.
"Oh! You should totally try the production method! Why not start now? You can just delete everything you've written so far and start fresh! Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
That bastard is insidious.
Also, he's hard to ignore.
He's that loud guy at parties wearing the tacky jacket and speaking really fucking loud because he loves the sound of his own voice.
You have to ignore him. You have to turn your back on him, muffle his niggling whispery voice. Drown him out with keystrokes.
Just write.
Just get the words down on the page.
Everything else will sort itself out later.
Just write.