t the best in the writer. Other audiences are inhibiting, and this can be so powerful a force that the writer is blocked from writing at all.
The norm, though, is somewhere between these extremes so that the awareness of the audience disturbs or disrupts the writing process without completely blocking it. We have all experienced this feeling. When we have to write to someone we find intimidating--such as when students write for teachers--we start thinking defensively. This creates a process in which we monitor our thoughts. Our thoughts are no longer free and no longer as direct as they would be without this inhibiting factor. We begin to think the way we believe the audience will think. We start to find objections to our own work and change it accordingly. We qualify or soften what we write and get so tangled in knots that we are no longer sure what we think at all.
When we see that an audience is confusing or inhibiting us, we must ignore the audience altogether during the early stages of writing and direct our words to ourselves or to no one in particular. We might even substitute an audience we consider better, an audience that would be more inviting and inspiring. This runs counter to what many writing teachers seem to believe as they encourage students to keep the audience in mind at all times. Elbow emphasizes that this is often wrong advice for beginning writers who have not yet found their own voice. An established writer who has found his or her own voice might be able to follow the traditional advice
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