Your writing is meant to evolve with every version of you. It's allowed to change as you change. You're allowed to want to write about new things now, in a new way. You're allowed to change your mind, to try out a tone that better suits you, to take a whole new direction with your work and see where that goes, how that feels.
It's all the evolving journey of a writer. Our words and our style update themselves as we do, with every moment we collect and every experience that becomes ours.
Have you felt this? Maybe you're trying to write in a way that isn't quite fitting anymore? If so, take a look at who you are now. What are you drawn to? What kinds of things light you up right now?
I am so very hard on myself - especially when it comes to my writing. But, I've found, exploring the new versions of myself and who I am becoming can help lead the way to writing that feels very, authentically me. You know, the kind you're excited to sit down and write. The kind that makes your fingers tingle in anticipation. The words that are dancing in your mind, ready to be free. That kind. That kind of writing makes it easier to be easier on yourself.
I wrote my first novel, Heartsand a few years ago now and I can see, in so many ways, how I've changed since then. That work is an old version of myself, held like a time capsule. Loved and also critiqued (mostly by me) - a place captured in time, but not the version typing this right now. Far from it, likely.
So just because you wrote a certain way before, doesn't mean that's your way now. Sit with who you are now. Listen to her. She knows what makes sense.