tear down the wall

I *think* I'm getting better.

It's scary to even suggest it, like I might chase it away if I name it. But I think I am. The writing block is crumbling, a little at a time, and that is major.

I have decided (shiver) to sign up and do the NaNo contest. It's a contest that challenges you to write a 50K-word novel in the month of November. You begin November 1, and have to submit your manuscript by midnight Nov. 30. They don't read it, just do a word count and confirm whether you've "won." The point is quantity, not quality. So I hope it will once in for all make the internal critic (I have yammering in my head most of the time) shut up. Maybe not forever--I think that's impossible--but I also hope that the critic will be forever bested--gutted and powerless to stop me from writing.

And if I need a refresher I can always do the contest again next year or some November when I need another dose of intensive, bad writing to make the critic go away.

I have some ideas and I plan to do a little outlining today. I am not, traditionally, an outliner, but at this point I am ready to try all sorts of new things to get the writing going, and, I hope, making it sustainable.