Fantastic, frustrating, empowering, diminishing, a blast, depressing.

These are the things I feel on a weekly basis when writing.

I started writing a book last fall that I had to abandon for another manuscript (hopefully more to come on that soon). With the other ms complete, I dusted off the old one off and have been laboring at it for a couple of months. I don’t mean to make it sound cumbersome. My heroine in this story is my favorite heroine of mine to date. She’s goofy, self-deprecating, determined, and a complete train wreck. I adore her.

She’s the reason I keep plugging away at this story, because of all the stories I’ve written, I’ve had the most trouble with this one. But I can’t stow this girl away to never be heard from. So for the past month or so I have stared at the computer screen, sometimes only writing one paragraph over a two hour period of time, willing plot points to pop into my head.

And then I sat down with my husband for a brain-storming session one night. It was the push I needed. Slowly but surely, I got back on the horse and drove the story forward. Now, that horse is galloping full-speed ahead as I have written more words in this past week than I have in the past two months combined. This girl’s story will be told!

If the darn secondary character will quit trying to take over.

I’m telling you, this girl is bound and determined to take her friend’s story from her. I keep hushing this secondary character, promising she will have her turn in book two, but she’s damn persistent and stubborn as hell. I’m about to break out some duct tape on her. Can you believe she even made me write the first scene of her book the other night? And I’m not even finished with book one. I swear, this girl is going to have me up till two in the morning trying to get her story done. Can I please finish book one?

So if you are a writer, and you are stuck, HANG IN THERE. You will get over your hump, although it doesn’t feel like it now. And when you do, you might wish for the times when you had nothing to write about. At least you were getting a decent night’s sleep.