“As a writer, you can’t allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rejected, either by agents or publishers. You absolutely must plow forward.” Augusten Burroughs

Do you hear The Voice? An insistent hissing in your ear that reinforces every negative message you have ever heard throughout your life: “You can’t, you won’t, you don’t, you are not, you never will, you’re too old, so why don’t you just quit?”

We all have these voices following us around because at one time or another we have all heard one or more of these messages from someone, even if they were not deserved and even true. Often people feel the need to say negative or hurtful things to others because of something that has nothing to do with the situation they are commenting on. Usually, it’s about them. Unfortunately, the damage is done and The Voice files away what it hears to be used at a later date. So be prepared.

Writers are particularly susceptible because they work alone and are attempting to create something unique. Writing is an uphill slog and unless they happen to be J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, the self-professed writer is often viewed as being just a little bit off.

The Voice reached its peak for me last year as I was completing the final edits for my book. Loud, irascible and snarky with a long (and fairly accurate, unfortunately) list of everything that I had ever screwed up or not finished, The Voice would not shut up.

Around this time I was having a routine test done at the hospital, on my way past the gift shop (which in case you don’t know always has great stuff, so stop in), I found a body for The Voice: Simon, the Mandrill.

Instead of taking the coward’s path, I decided to beat Simon at his own game. I never know when he is going to show up.

One of these strategies almost always works:

• Tell The Voice to be quiet. You know what you’re doing. You’ve done this or something like it before with great success. You’re a rock star.
• Get up and move. Do jumping jacks. Run the vacuum. Drop and do pushups (I don’t do this but you can.)
• Do nothing. Sit quietly and start breathing deeply and repeat. “I know that I can do this.”
• Keep on doing what you need to do. In my case that is WRITE. Focus on what it is you need to do to reach the next step.  And you will.

If all else fails, I have found this to work…