How To Fight The Doubt Monster

After living through many emotion-draining months, and finally burning out, I pulled myself together and got back to writing. Only now I find myself facing the doubt monster. You know the ugly, hairy, big-tooth beast, who creeps up on you when you find yourself staring at a blank page, after a break from writing, and whispers in your ear, "You haven't written anything in weeks! You know you've lost your talent, don’t you? Don’t even bother to write anything today, you’ll only have to rewrite the whole thing anyway. Wait until you get it perfect in your mind!" Or words to that effect.

The only sure weapon I know to use when I need to smack the doubt monster over the head and send him on his way, is to refresh my mind with the craft of writing.  

We can never know too much about the writing craft, and I try to take time out several times per year to learn new writing skills and reinforce what I already know.

The past few days I've been doing just that. I've learned some amazing techniques which I can't wait to use. One of them is a way to increase my writing speed--which I'm dying to try out! :)

If you follow this blog, you'll know one of my great desires is to be among those authors who can write 2,000+ words per hour. This new method promises me the opportunity to do so.

I need to tweak the method a little so it fits me. If it works, I'll blog and share the method with you.

Meanwhile, I'd love for you to share your process of getting rid of the doubt monster.

Do you ever take hits from this negative emotion? How do you get rid of doubt? Does it affect your writing when it attacks?