I've had a hard time ignoring the inner critic this past year for some reason. It sucks.
But I suppose it's part of the territory sometime or another if you are any sort of artist.
Lately this has been my balm:
Giving myself firm (and crazy) deadlines.
Then diving forward and drawing like a mad-woman to meet the deadlines.
The result?
Despite the inner critic still paying me lots of visits, I've been going through sketch books fast enough that I've abandoned them in favor of reams of paper.
I've been trying my best to just keep drawing. Just keep working. Making stuff and ignoring the voice that says it sucks or no one will ever care.
And the deadlines feel like permission to do so. Because something has to be made to meet those deadlines. What I'm saying is deadlines allow me to feel the fear and plunge forward anyway.
And I have to say, the plunge is nice. It feels good to shove Ms. Perfectionist's noise aside in favor of listening to Ms. Get-Something-Done. And to be honest I mostly think it it feels good because I love drawing. I love drawing even when I don't know if I like my drawings very much. I want permission to draw even if my drawings aren't perfect. This is (I think) why it works for me.
Right now I'm making myself get a bunch of new work done before a conference. I also have that beautiful deadline called my "due date" (as in for my current pregnancy), which is certainly a motivator.
Now if only I could harness this same idea with submissions... That's something I'm going to have to try (that perfectionist can be pretty brutal when it comes to submissions).
What helps you when your inner critic is hounding you?