Thought distortions. Writers can’t really help it—we live in our heads and talk to ourselves all day. And a lot of what we say to ourselves are a lifetime of internalized messages from our family, friends, and society.

Our thoughts get twisted or are just plain wrong—distorted. And they can really do a job on our ability to work and grow as a writer. I know I’ve engaged in a few harmful thoughts this week. Do any of these messages sound familiar?

All-Or-Nothing Thinking

Everything is in one of two possible categories. For example,

     If my story isn’t perfect, then I suck and should quit.

All writers. Everywhere.

Mind Reading

We somehow know what other people think. I most often mind read when I assume people hated my story if they don’t make a point to speak to me about it. 

Unhelpful Rules

We set up certain conditions that we must fulfilled no matter what. For some personality types (like me) these can get a bit obsessive. Daily (or whatever) word counts, book sale targets, and number of social media followers are examples. Routines and goals are often useful but stressing slavishly over them is not. 

Delusional Thinking

In the delusional thinking thought distortion, we convince ourselves that something is true to explain a decision or shield ourselves from the truth.

The ten beta readers that couldn’t follow the story’s plot were obviously not paying attention as they read my book.

Kathy L. Brown, megalomaniac

Exaggerated Thinking

This is a kind of all-or-nothing thinking, when we blow up the importance of a situation. We send a query letter, then find a spelling error. “That’s it, I’m ruined. This agent will never consider my book.”

All these thought distortions get in the writer’s way. If you think of any others, comment on the blog!

If you enjoyed this journal entry, you might like to read about What Is a Behavior Chain?

I started this blog thread on the gritty details of the writing process over on my Facebook Author page, @kbkathylbrown, but think I might be better served putting it over here. If you’re interest in following my writing process in an informal way, you’ll find a few posts on Facebook that might interest you. You can subscribe to the blog from the website landing page (scroll down).