You pause before writing that weird scene. You second-guess the odd character choice. You fiddle with the dialogue because it sounds too much like how people in your neighborhood talk and not enough like how people talk in movies.

You’re writing for an audience of critics who exist only in your head.

Here’s the truth: Nobody is watching you write. Nobody is reading over your shoulder, judging your word choices, keeping score of your mistakes. That harsh voice in your head isn’t your future readers—it’s your own fear.

Right now, in this moment, you have complete creative freedom. You can write anything. You can make your characters do ridiculous and frankly stupid things (just like real people do). You can explore strange and disturbing ideas. You can write sentences that would make your high school English teacher write nasty, passive-aggressive notes on your report card.

The imaginary audience will have plenty of opportunities to judge your work later, during the long process of turning your first draft into something you’re willing to share. If you even decide to do that – it’s not required.

But right now, they don’t get a vote.

This is your time. Your space. Your story.

Write the scenes that excite you, even if they seem weird. Give your characters the flaws that make them interesting, even if they make them less likeable. Use the words that feel right to you, even if they’re not the words a “real writer” would use.

Write with the same freedom you had when you were seven years old, making up stories for your own entertainment. Write like you’re telling a story to your best friend. Write like you’re having fun.

Because you should be having fun. This is supposed to be the good part—the part where anything is possible, where you get to play god in your own little universe, where the only limits are the ones you set for yourself.

The critics and judges and harsh voices will show up to pick apart your work, eventually. But they don’t belong in the room where it happens.

This is your time to be fearless, to be experimental, to be authentically yourself on the page.

Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s judging. Nobody’s keeping score.

So open your draft and write.