Love your material. Nothing frightens the inner critic more than the writer who loves her work. The writer who is enamored of her material forgets all about censoring herself. She doesn't stop to wonder if her book is any good, or who will publish it, or what people will think. She writes in a trance, losing track of time, hearing only her characters in her head.
As long as I'm around the cats in the hip hop scene, they'll throw me a track and I'll write a rap over it.
There's something uncontaminated about her, and I don't even mean sexually or whatever. I mean the way she is, at her core. Like when you wake up and the world has been blanketed by snow overnight, and not a single footstep or tire track has spoiled the untouched perfection of it.
I actually got dared to audition for the dance team. All my track-and-field buddies dared me to audition, and I was one of the few guys who did it.
I'm measuring my actions against that inner voice that for me at least is audible, is active, it tells me where I think I'm on track and where I think I'm off track.