But I Have Something To Say

It's tripe. It's trash. It's not anywhere near as good as the last three novels you read.

I nod my head in agreement, the weight of the words settling across my arms, weighing down my fingers. It's difficult to write when my brain starts screeching like this. Ever tried to focus on anything while a howler monkey screams full tilt directly into your ear? It's about as much fun as a barrel of monkeys--incidentally, who decided collecting them in a barrel and taking them home was a good idea?

You have no description. Where are your characters even interacting? Some chalk-outline of a building chicken-scratched against a timeless horizon? Does anyone even know what your characters look like?

I shrug, shaking my head. "Probably not." I recall the last book I picked up to page through, The Fountainhead. The descriptions are rich beyond belief, so intricate that it is difficult to keep paying attention. It might not do well with casual readers and it doesn't immerse me at all, but Rand knew the craft and it is a glory to behold. If I could capture a fraction of the way she portrayed her characters and her settings, I would be well served.

You're not even working on your story! You put it aside and you're, what, working on more fanfiction? This again?

"Mhmm. This again." I keep typing, fully accepting that my chapter is probably tripe and trash and certainly isn't original work.

I used to put up more of a fight about this critical voice. Many days I do believe I'm a competent writer. But on the days I don't, I've opted for a quieter, deep-rooted resistance. It costs much less energy to dig in behind this truth:

But I have something to say. I have stories that I want to write.

It negates anything the internal criticism is attacking. The criticisms may be correct or they may be false, but in the end it doesn't matter. Nothing this howler monkey yells will change the fact that I have things to say and stories to write. And if that means that my current attempts fail, so be it. It will be messy and painful and soul-searing, but I will learn. I will learn and grow and become a better writer and then I will write even more stories and say even more things that I need to say.

These are the words that I hunker down behind, waiting for the siege to end.