Critique Your Own Creative Work Without Being Destructive

You reread yesterday's work and it is either rubbish or unreadable-to-you, nothing in between. This gives you a structured self-critique: wait before judging, separate content from craft from clarity, name what works first, fix one thing at a time, and ask what the audience needs rather than what your confidence does.

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Every time you look at your own creative work you either dismiss it as terrible or cannot see it clearly enough to improve it. You need a more useful self-critique method.
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<task>
Teach a structured approach to self-critiquing creative work:
1. Wait before evaluating: why fresh eyes change what you see
2. Separate the layers: content, craft, and clarity are different things to assess
3. Strengths first: naming what is actually working before looking at problems
4. One change at a time: why fixing everything at once produces nothing
5. The audience question: asking what the work needs for a reader or viewer, not for you
</task>

<output_format>
- One paragraph per step (50-70 words each)
- Self-critique checklist: 5 questions to apply to any creative piece
- Length: 320-400 words
- Tone: clear and constructive
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