The Critique, The Creator and the Editor Went to a Bar

The critic, the creator, and the editor walked into a bar. I looked at my screen and thought, "Is this some kind of a joke? This is not how I can start this essay!"

In my attempt to write something — I like calling it creating something — I immediately judged the first line I wrote. The critic in me analyzed multiple ways why this was a bad start and how it could be better. The editor in me jumped into the scene to fix it. The creator in me was just trying to keep up with the demands of the other two.

I like to call them the trifecta of unproductivity. In order to become good at anything, I have to create, at the very least. In order to make it presentable, I have to edit the boring pieces out. And in order to improve, I have to critique my own work from a different lens. Each one is necessary. The problem arises when all three points of the triangle try to meet at the center. The creator, the editor, and the critic cannot operate together.

I have a friend. We recently went out to spend some leisurely time. I was reading a book and she was painting a bird. As I watched her, I couldn't help but notice her way of working. She had a vision in her mind that was supposed to be poured onto the canvas. Every now and then she'd find herself going in the wrong direction, away from that vision — but she wouldn't make a drastic course correction. A minor change in approach, maybe. But she never let her flow break. Never let the critic in her overtake. Never let the editor interrupt the creator's work.

Eventually she finished her painting. Then she pulled out a different colored pen and started annotating — the mistakes she found, the things she could have done differently. After noting down five or six points on the painting itself, she gave it a rating.

For her, this was just how she did things. For me, it was a completely different way to operate. She never let her critic, editor, and creator clash. She made them collaborate by making them take turns.

All of us, at some point, have great ideas our creator can come up with. But rather than creating like a river flowing, we let the critic enter the scene, shut down our ideas and thoughts, and immediately employ the editor to rewrite as we write. The river never gets anywhere because we keep building dams every few meters.

The idea, I think, is to sequence them. When you're creating, create as if every word deserves to exist — don't question the river, just let it run. When you're critiquing, do it with the eye of an art director: look at the whole, leave notes, point at what isn't working and why. And when you're editing, make every cut, every change, to bring the work closer to the vision you started with.

I'm staring at this essay right now. Six paragraphs in and the critic is already pacing behind me, arms crossed. The editor has a red pen ready. But I'm not letting them in. Not yet. They'll get their turn. Right now, the creator is still typing.