Doing Battle with the Little Hater

[owlmoose]

So folks may have noticed that I haven't been around so much lately, and I haven't been writing a whole lot, either (this is particularly notable in my monthly writing goals posts). There have been some real-world reasons for my absences, but I've had other busy periods in my life without much time to sit down at my computer, and those haven't necessarily kept me from posting -- here when it was my primary posting spot, on Tumblr once I semi-migrated over there.

I've thought about this relative lack of posting off and on: why it might be happening, why I haven't been particularly motivated to change it. But it didn't really come into focus until today, when tarysande reblogged a great post by jadesabre301, "Jade's Guide to Not Caring About the Number of Notes You Get" (which I immediately reblogged with a link to "Internet Popularity and The Claw", which seemed an appropriate addendum).

In a way, Jade's Guide isn't anything I didn't already know. These are all guidelines I try to follow, to one extent or another. But it resonated with me right now, particularly Steps 6 and 8: Post When You Write Something and Write More. Because that's exactly what I haven't been doing: posting, and writing more. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized: my problem is The Little Hater.

The Little Hater is a concept presented by the always-briliant Jay Smooth, in a video about creativity and communication and getting stuck. I've posted about this video before*, but we can always stand to watch it again.

"Beating The Little Hater" (Watch on YouTube)

The whole thing is worth watching, but here's the key quote:

I’m sure there are people who wake up every day feeling confident that the entire world wants to look at their face and listen to them talk, but I’m not one of those people. When I’m in the groove, and getting work done, and I feel like I’m making the connection with you guys out there… it feels natural to keep showing up and maintaining that connection. But if I go too long without putting work in, and it feels like that connection is broken, there’s a little voice inside my head that starts playing tricks on me, and trying to convince me that the connection was never really there.

Jay calls that voice The Little Hater, and my Little Hater has been dogging at me for ages now, particularly around my journaling. That voice sends me into a death spiral of perfectionism and procrastination, telling me that no one really cares what I have to say, and it isn't really that good anyway, and if I'm going to post something in my journal now, it had better be good to make up for all the days (weeks, months) of inattention. So I'll start on something, but then get stuck on it and don't finish it (like the Agents of SHIELD post I started writing in June), or I don't bother to write it at all (I've had links in open tabs about the latest "misogyny in gaming culture" blowup for weeks now). It happens with fanfic, too; I start a story and then abandon it, halfway through or even as a final draft, after convincing myself that it's not worth posting. I haven't crossposted from Tumblr in forever (except for the fic WIP meme from yesterday), and I haven't reblogged a Tumblr meme or posted fic there in quite a while. A lack of creation leads to a lack of communication which leads to a lack of connection, and that causes a feeling of isolation that feeds back on itself.

The only way I've ever found to break out of these negative feedback loops is to swim upstream against them. Force myself to write even when I'm not inspired, to post even when I'm not 100% happy with the results, and so here I am, writing about this, and putting the post out for the world to see. At the very least, I need to notice this cycle while it's happening, if only to remind myself that it's not reality, it's just The Little Hater.

And The Little Hater is a liar.

Even when it doesn't feel like it.

*I wanted to link that post here, but going through my archives and trying to find it turned into a project that I was using to procrastinate writing this post, which is exactly one of the traps that The Little Hater likes to use against me. ;) So I stopped looking and got to writing; apologies to those of you for whom this is a partial repeat.

Comments

[lea_hazel]

I certainly know this feeling, and it's hard to push past it and accept that things you write but don't post also count, even if no one sees them but you. Or things you do post, but which don't get read.

[owlmoose]

Totally, on both counts. It has been helpful, sometimes, over the years, to be tracking wordcounts on everything I write, whether it gets posted or not, because at least I feel like I'm making progress. But that doesn't help in terms of getting feedback and making connections with people.

[stealth_noodle]

I hadn't seen his Little Hater video before (which is funny because I've seen so many of his others), but wow is that spot-on.

I've ended up on an accidental Tumblr hiatus because I've been disastrously busy, and I'm already bracing myself to get past that feeling of "Well, I haven't posted anything in so long, I can't post anything now unless it's good enough to make up for the wait." This weekend I'm going to try to finally start on an exchange fic and plow through a stack of unreplied messages; maybe I should write "'SORRY I TOOK SO LONG TO GET BACK TO YOU' IS GOOD ENOUGH" on a Post-It note and stick it to my screen.

[owlmoose]

Jay Smooth is pretty much my hero.

maybe I should write "'SORRY I TOOK SO LONG TO GET BACK TO YOU' IS GOOD ENOUGH" on a Post-It note and stick it to my screen.

I think that's an excellent idea. I am *the worst* at replying to email and comments -- if I don't do it right away, it's probably not going to get done, and often with bad consequences.

[elainegrey]

* procrastination & perfectionism, i know them well
* good to see you posting!

[owlmoose]

It's interesting, because I've never thought of myself as a perfectionist. In many realms of my life, I'm a believer in things being good enough. But once I get into a Little Hater spiral, my standards for myself (not for anyone else, of course) start creeping upward, so gradually that I don't even notice. (Procrastination, however, is a constant feature of my life.)

And thanks! :) I keep telling myself I will get back in the habit. Maybe this time it will actually stick.

[umadoshi]

This was a good post to read today. ^^ Thank you. (Good links, too, although I haven't watched the video yet--I'm terrible about actually watching videos of any sort. ^^;)

[lassarina]

....this is a good and helpful post for me to have seen today.