To my Inner Critic,

Why is it specifically that you feel the need to judge a story before it is even written down, let alone edited? Don’t you know that in order to get to the point of the story being finished, it requires me to spit out absolute garbage, from which I can pick out the good bits and burn the rest? Did you know that the story isn’t done just because I finished the first draft? Don’t you know things take time, and it isn’t easy, let alone possible, to create a great work in one try? You’re the worst with essays, every time I try to make a damn point you have to argue you the other side… and you make complete sense! Even when I’m trying to argue a point that I believe, I can’t reach the rhetoric I want to reach because you oh so easily call out my fallacy’s in logic. I guess I should thank you for that one.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh with my line of questioning, this isn’t exactly a two-way dialogue we’re having here. I’m not being fair to your perspective. I understand why you do the things that you do, you want my work to be the best version it can be. And in that regard, we’re on the same page. But I think you should know perfection isn’t real, and if perfection is what you are looking for, you’ll never see it in my work. And I am okay with that, because I believe imperfections are their own version of perfection, and my imperfections are what make my work, well, my work.

I hope we can come to an understanding that perfection isn’t real, and we should aim for authenticity instead. Even though it’s not logical, perhaps you’ll come to see that the imperfections are what will make things perfect. And until you realize that, I’d like to say: fuck off.

Until next time,

Andrew