Over the Threshold

Braving a new writing project, and allowing myself to do it.

November 1st, 2024. From here on in, I write without a plan.

I do this every. Single. Year. November comes around, I prep myself for a month of furtive typing and having no life away from my word processor. And then, about halfway through, the Other comes into play.

The Other is the side of myself that is paralyzed by the idea of anyone reading what I have to write. It ignores the notebooks and scrap paper filled to the margins from the time I could hold a pencil. It disregards 6 and 12 and 18 and 27 year old versions of myself continuing to come back to The Dream of being a writer. It overlooks the scores of ideas and characters waiting to be brought to life by my hands, some of which have been in the purgatory of my self-consciousness for almost two decades.

The Other lets me get about 20,000 words in, and then it announces last call. It tells me that no one cares. It opens the door to doubt and I just let myself walk right through.

And yet here I am.

Wasting brain powers on sentences that won’t apply to my word count goal for day one.

While I have distanced myself from the official November novel writing project, I have found other ways to have community as I seek to write 50,000 words in a month. On top of that, I have buried The Other in the backyard (and we will hope that she doesn’t pull a House of Usher-esque escape from this grave). I refuse to get stuck in an edit cycle. I refuse to get stuck in a self-doubt cycle. I have decided that I don’t care if anyone wants to read what I write or not. I want to write it, and that is enough for me.

I don’t even have a plan! I did all the prep, all the planning, and then decided last night that I needed to go a different route. The plan was so perfect in my head, completely laid out before me. This, of course, means that once I started writing, it all disappeared. But I have the essence, and I am so excited about it that there is no looking back to the other projects that vied for this esteemed spot.

And so we begin with this! My first Substack post, an ode to writing because I want to, because I have to, because I need to.

I am certain no one will read it, and I can hear The Other from her burial plot screaming at that fact in rage and fear, but I will ignore her. Because I wrote it.

And I am so glad that I did.

(p.s. The first line here is a nod to the musical Rent. Just for the annoying former theater kid flair and so that I can’t be accused of plagiarism)