Me in the Circus Mirror: Life with my Inner Editor

Yesterday, as part of the 31 Days of Ninja Writing Challenge (You can check that out here) we were talking about our Inner Editors.

The rundown: for many writers, your Inner Editor is the voice in your head that criticizes everything that you write. Even when you’re working on a rough draft, or something that’s not meant to be perfect, they’re always there with the commentary:

This is useless.

You’re wasting your time.

You should scrap this.

You need to move on to something else.

If you’re a fan of amazing and obscure musical theatre, you might know this entity as The Vampire of Despair.

The last vampire is the mother of all vampires, and that is the Vampire of Despair. It’ll wake you up at 4 AM to say things like: ‘Who do you think you’re kidding?’ ‘You look like a fool.’ ‘No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be good enough.’

In the challenge post, Shaunta talks about imagining your inner editor (she’s named hers Blythe) locked into a box or a cage until it’s time to revise; until it’s an appropriate time to release her and listen to her feedback, as unfairly critical as it might be.

It’s good advice. (Shaunta’s advice is always good!) But, for me, it’s not that easy.

My inner editor . . . is me.

It sounds really stupid to say that, because, of course, my inner editor is me. That’s what an inner editor is. It’s a personification of an independent individual, a semi-sentient personality that lives inside of us, and gives us no end of grief about what we’re doing wrong.

And, yes, it’s not really a real person, but it’s kind of a social or cultural construct, between us writerly folk, that lets us bitch about how hard writing is by pretending we have some asshole screaming at us, as we type in our dark man/woman/non-binary-caves.

We get it. It’s a fictional construct. In our heads.

But that fictional construct that’s in my head isn’t somebody else. It’s me.

Oh, God, It’s not the actual me, who’s sitting at this computer, daydreaming about finishing this article, getting up, popping an ice cold can of Diet Coke despite it being 11:15 at night. Not the me who knows exactly where the chips are, the me who, despite wedging my heft into the backseat of a car for 7 hours ate a huge dinner, because that’s how I’m going to get more comfortable.

This Zach also doesn’t weigh 530 pounds. (Oh, so there’s a causal relationship between those two things, please, tell me more. I had noooo idea, and I’ve never heard that before). He doesn’t worry about his bad teeth, or the fact that he has trouble breathing or walking or singing.

This Zach is skinny and jaunty, vaguely hipsterish, good-looking enough to play leading man on Broadway, if he wanted to (and he wants. Believe me, he wants to.)

He’s definitely not considering going back to school, despite failing to get even an Associate’s Degree after attending 5 community colleges in the last decade. Hell no, he’s working on his doctorate now, like most people still in school at his age.

This Zach published his first novel at 17, his second at 20, and has been churning them out, one a year, since. Not only is he a prolific YA author, he’s also a Rhodes Scholar, is fluent in most of the Romance and Germanic languages, and Tolkien studies — in fact, he’s considered the second coming of Tolkien, despite the fact that Tolkien never wrote sappy contemporary romances for teens.

But nevermind that, now. This guy is brilliant, hot, and oozes charisma like a drunk bard on DnD night (He probably doesn’t make Dungeons and Dragons references, either). He’s neurotypical, wealthy, and has never once had to think about his privilege. He is happy and in love with his life.

He is the person that I could have been, if I’d had a little more luck, if I’d worked a little bit harder, if I had been just a little bit better, if I hadn’t been so sad and reclusive.

He is the person who critiques me when I start writing.

He notices the bad phrases, the hackneyed metaphors, the flat characters. He rolls his eyes every time that I write something stupid, or that I have to alt-tab to look up something I should already know. He tells me that my pacing is terrible, my characters stink, and nobody’s ever going to want to read my book. He purses his lips when people tell me that I’ve picked a memorable title.

Skinny!Zach went into shock when I actually finished the novel. He was appalled at my audacity when I applied for the 2015–16 Nevada SCBWI mentor program. He clucked his tongue when I got in. He laughed at the thought of an amazing published author wanting to work on my book, and made me feel ashamed of the drivel that I gave her. He was noisy by my side when I rewrote the whole thing.

He was appalled at my gall when I started submitting queries, and flashed me the LOSER sign as the rejections came in by the bushel. But I kept going, through all of that.

Where he finally got me was when it was time to start writing book two. He just would not shut up as I started delving into new characters, new situations, new stories. “You just finished a book, how dare you write something that bad! You should be better by now! But no, that’s right: you suck and nobody wants your books! So why bother?”

Putting him aside is hard.

Ignoring him is hard.

It’s a day by day struggle, and it’s one that I have to do, because I want to tell stories for teens. I’ve known that ever since I put down Laurie Halse Anderson’s SPEAK the first time I read it in middle school. And, hard as it is for me to believe sometimes, somewhere, deep down inside of me, I know that I’m kind of good at it. Else, I wouldn’t keep trying

He doesn’t want me to write. He wants me to wallow in misery. He’d also prefer it if I stopped acting, stopped going to — and failing at — school, and stopped trying to make friends. He’s the one who told me to stay in Southern California with my family and my misery, instead of moving back to Reno and being around people who aren’t blood relations, but who are willing to take care of me and want to see me happy.

I have to tell him to fuck off. I have to trick him. I have to outwit him. I have to remind myself who the actual person is in this relationship.

It’s me.

I’m the real person.

I’m the one who’s alive.

He doesn’t exist. It is so seriously hard to remember that, sometimes, because more than a little part of me does want him to exist. I wish I was him! That’s who I’d be if I was a normal person, if I wasn’t messed up — or so I think.

But he’s. Not. Real.

Though, I have to say, for someone who doesn’t exist, it sure took a hell of a lot of microbrews to get him drunk enough to let me write this in peace.

—

Zach Payne is, to borrow the words of Lin-Manuel Miranda, “a polymath, a pain in the ass, a massive Payne.” He acts, sings poorly, and writes poetry, plays, and young adult fiction.

He’s an assistant at Ninja Writers, where he helps new writers find their voice and their tribe. He was the query intern for Pam Victorio at D4EO, and his novel Somehow You’re Sitting Here was selected for Nevada SCBWI’s 2015–16 Mentor Program. He lives in Reno.