Prior to domestication, writers command a distinct self with particularities and talents. Somewhere along this blissful path, their souls are squashed by the Inevitable Plague of the Life Crisis. The realization of what one should be dawns. Doubt grows and all sorts of horrifying notions fill the weakened mind. Writers ought to do such and such, an invisible creature formed of Everybody’s Opinions says. Avoid this mistake! Don’t write in this format! Don’t write in such and such POV!

Rules.

Art is not rules. Replicating the success of others holds you back. To be the best writer you can be, you must be wholly yourself.

Stop listening to People.

People aren’t you.

I used to think some people were “born” creative. That certain personalities were inherently more creative than others. True creatives possessed the ability to create concretely on the fly. I was slow. I should not have been creative. My ideas were not original. I was not intuitive.

That was before I knew myself. Before I understood I absorb pieces of information from millions of places and transform them into something cohesive; not a story so much as a feeling. Fuzzy at first but mutating into something new. Once epiphany struck, I learned to trust my process and appreciate the way I created. Then I loved writing because I did not have to pretend or follow someone else’s model of creation.

Turn off the advice. Listen to your inner self. In the silence, you will hear a whisper.

Listen.