I’m back, slapping you in the face with Hard Troofs. Today’s hard truth?

As a writer, Shame is your buddy. And we’re capitalizing the ‘S’ because it sounds like a name. Shane. Shamus. Shame. Herr Doktor Guilten von Shamenstein! Ahem.

You don’t think shame (okay, we’ll go with lowercase ‘s’) is your buddy. It runs counter to all our huggy, touchy-feely, “writer-as-artist” instincts. It flies in the face of the idea that we live and die by our Muse, that inspiration is our best friend, that we are bliss-filled creators whose hearts and pens run on a recipe of unicorn milk and cuddly koala bear wishes and rainbow sprinkles.

Oh, but inspiration is a fickle drug with a fast high and a long low. You’ll chase that dragon for days, and its tail will forever slide through your greasy fingers. And the Muse? She’s just a paper tiger, nipping at your heels. You let her catch you, she’ll explode in a rain of origami boulders. And nothing is written on those origami boulders, people.

More importantly, everybody knows you can’t milk a unicorn. Unicorn lactation is toxic. It’ll burn right through the pail. It’s true. It’s so true, you could put it on a bumper sticker or a t-shirt.

So, who’s left?

Shame.

Shame is the orange coils of a hot stove.

Shame is the chika-chika-chika of a rattlesnake’s tail.

Shame is the friend who’s honest enough to tell you when you fucked up.

Shame is pain. Nobody likes pain. But, newsflash: we need pain. Pain is a negative reinforcer. “Hey, don’t put your nuts in that mousetrap. Remember what happened last time?” Children learn a lot about the world through pain — and no, I’m not advocating beating your kids, folks, I’m just saying that children discover unfortunate but oft-times significant negative lessons through experiencing pain. Don’t go touching a growling dog. Fire, as it turns out, is hot. Riding your tricycle down a steep hill that ends in a nest of briars will make you bleed, so maybe don’t do that next time.

As a writer, you need shame. You need that negative reinforcer.

Now, let’s define our terms a little.

By “shame,” I don’t mean, “in what you’re writing.”

Write what you want. Write what you feel is necessary, whether it’s a story you need to tell, or a story you don’t want to tell but you think the world will want to hear.

No, the shame comes in specifically at one moment:

I failed to write, today.

You set a target for yourself of 1,000 words a day, and you miss it? Shame. You have a novel that’s 10k from the finish line, and has lain torpid and incomplete for the better part of six years? Shame. You keep talking about “that project” that’s going to be “so awesome,” but day-in and day-out you fail to produce anything but promises of future coolness? Shaaaaame.

This comes with some caveats, of course. Shame must be handled properly, like a slow loris riled to fast anger. You can’t just go sticking your fingers in its mouth. You have to hold it just right, lest it take off your nose and poison you with its elbow toxins.

The first caveat: know when to embrace it. This is tricky. Listen, if you don’t write on Tuesday because you’re vomiting up caterpillars and launching snot-rockets out the corners of your eyes, you’re sick, not lazy. No shame. You just broke up with your girlfriend, and she stole your dog? Don’t write that day. Really. No shame. Cat just died? House burned down? America’s been invaded by China? Shame needn’t apply. Alternately, if “I didn’t write today” has something to do with a Judge Judy marathon or the fact that you didn’t want to dirty your keyboard with your smeary Cheeto fingers, you might want to think of inviting shame into your life for a little while.

The second caveat: note the earlier sentence, “for a little while.” Shame is meant to function like metal that glows orange when it gets hot. You touch it once, you jerk your hand back, you say, “Sweet Motherless Fuck, that smarts!” and then you know not to touch the angry metal lest you invite the gods of agony once more into your flesh. Shame needs to be the temporary sting, okay? Problem is, we humans are self-hating creatures. We love to wallow in misery, like pigs rolling around in garbage. Shame has a purpose, but its purpose is limited or lost if you cling to it like a remora on a shark’s belly. Let shame have its bite. Then, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on. You wouldn’t grab a handful of bees and hold on so they could keep stinging you, so think of shame as the handful of bees.

Shame is best-paired with reward, of course, like a fine Shiraz paired with, say, a sock to the mouth. Write today, eat some chocolate. Fail to write today, eat a hot dog roll slathered in the sour mustard of shame. Reward on its own, without shame, doesn’t work for me. If I don’t get my chocolate, I’ll survive. Moreover, we never want the lack of effort to translate into meager reward, which is what happens when we embrace the huggy “writer-as-artist” vibe. We excuse our lack of work and say, “Oh, it’s okay, I’m still very talented and one day, everybody will know it.” We mustn’t take our failure to produce and fill it with positive reinforcement. No patting yourself on the back if you don’t deserve it.

Your mileage may, of course, vary. You do what you do, I’ll do what I do. I like shame, though. Shame’s my honest friend. Maybe you’ll like him, too. He’s an equal opportunity buddy!