I used to think the voice in my head was just me being realistic. You know the one. The voice that whispers, "Don’t try that, you’re not ready." Or, "You’ll never be as good as her." Or, "What if everyone finds out you have no idea what you’re doing?"
I called it doubt. I called it caution. I even convinced myself it was discipline. But the truth is, it was none of those things. It was fear, dressed up in logic. And it had taken up permanent residence in my mind.
Eventually, I gave her a name. Not to give her more power, but to take mine back. To stop letting her run the show in silence. Because once I could call her out, I could call her out.
She was sharp. She was persistent. She always showed up when I was close to something good—close to finishing a draft, pitching an idea, standing in my truth. She didn’t yell. She didn’t rage. She just asked the kind of questions that sound like protection but feel like paralysis.
“Are you sure this is good enough?”
“Do you really think anyone wants to hear that story?”
“Isn’t it safer to wait?”
That voice had been with me for years. Long before I ever called myself a writer. She mirrored every rejection I’d ever internalized. Every critique I had turned into gospel. Every time I thought, maybe I’m just not the kind of person who gets to do this. And then one day, after rereading a paragraph I had torn apart and rewritten a dozen times, I sat back and whispered, "You have to go."
I fired her.
It wasn’t a dramatic moment. No fanfare. Just a quiet, deliberate choice to write the next sentence without her in the room. That doesn’t mean she hasn’t tried to come back. She has. Many times. But now, I know what she sounds like. I know the rhythm of her hesitation. And I no longer mistake her voice for my truth.
In Dominion, my characters wrestle with their own inner critics, sometimes in the form of literal voices, sometimes in the weight of expectation, trauma, or legacy. And what they learn, again and again, is that freedom doesn’t begin when the world gives you permission. It begins when you do. That inner voice? The one telling you you’re too much, too late, too uncertain? It’s not the whole story.
You are.
And when you learn to silence the critic and amplify the creator...that’s when the real writing begins. That’s when the real living begins.
So give her a name, if you need to.
And then show her the door.