From poets to public relations writers, we all get stuck in front of a blank screen from time to time. As Gail Godwin writes in her essay, “The Watcher at the Gate,” most of us have inner critics who throttle our ideas. She calls her critic the “Watcher.” “It is amazing the lengths a Watcher will go to keep you from pursuing the flow of your imagination,” she writes. “Watchers are notorious pencil sharpeners, ribbon changers, plant waterers, home repairers and abhorrers of messy rooms or messy pages.”

She’s got it right: when we name our inner critics, they’re much easier to ignore.