Distant glimmer of hope

It's just a little pinprick of light at this point, but I'll take it. I've been struggling with my writing all year. Longer than that, really. I thought, at first, that it was a discipline problem, that if I just sat down and got started that I'd get through it. My word count dropped. I lost my passion. Worse, I lost my plots.

I went over to Forward Motion, thinking that if anyone could tell me what I was doing wrong, or even if I was supposed to keep writing at all, I'd find them there. I got good answers and confirmation that I should be writing, but not *the* answer. Holly Lisle's offer to beta test her "Beating Writers Block" clinic has proven to be the answer, at least so far.

I've almost been afraid to blog about my progress. It's been so tenuous, almost fragile. I thought I'd lost it when I went out of town last weekend and didn't write for several days. Walter kept whispering ideas, but I didn't have time to get to them. I was concerned that he'd quit talking altogether again; he's cynical and distrustful, but how can you expect anything more from an introverted, hen-pecked Brit?

I signed up for NaNo last month, but I'm not going to make it this year. I probably won't come close; as of today, I'm a little over 8,000 words for the month. With less than two weeks left it's going to take a small miracle to pull it off. But I've been beating Walter up, pushing too hard, and when he stops having fun, everything goes to pot. To paraphrase a popular quote, if Walter ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. I had to realize that "lead, follow, or get out of the way" doesn't apply to him. I was trying to lead when he wanted me to follow and get out of the way! It's hard, it's frustrating, but Holly's podcasts assure me that things will improve.

So that's where we are--slowly emerging from the dark.