I can't make a mistake

Years ago, I took a writing class, and I wrote a few good stories in the process. Then, I got involved with NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, and I feel like that destroyed whatever skill in the craft I had picked up in my writing class. We were taught that the way to overcome writer's block was to just put any words down that we could think of, and get a word count, and then go back and edit it later. This did not work at all for me. But one lesson I learned for the better was that writer's block can be caused by a fear of making a mistake, and just getting the words out on paper can be one way of overcoming that fear. For myself, I think that a better approach would be to talk myself through the fear, and remain careful as to what words I choose, but to accept that I will make mistakes and that is okay.

Writing is necessary to prevent atrophy of writing's motor skills, concentration, memory, and vocabulary. Forget any comparisons to Shakespeare or Milton. With enough work, that is possible, but there are already so many talented writers out there, another is not needed. Nor is a clear ability to commumicate necessary, yet. First, training and exercise are important before actual competition can be attempted.

I would like to think that this blog is the training. And someday there will be a real competition.