Writing along...singing a song...

There should be fucking bluebirds flying around my head the last few mornings.

I am writing! 

YEAH!! 

*Trumpets Sound*
*Cymbals Crash*
*Wild Applause Breaks Out*

Okay, no big deal to you but if you have been reading my blog for any length of time you would know that I have had some major writing blocks recently.

Like the last six months, recently.

It doesn't take much. Altered schedule, temporary insanity, reality, stress, empty coffee pot...and soon I am bitchin' 'n' moanin' that I can't write.

I want to write but I can't.

And then, Caine came along. I do like Caine. I don't 'like' like him...well, maybe a little. But, I am completely obsessed with him. I'm thinking about him all the time. What he's going to say. What he's going to do. What he looks like. What he sounds like.

And I'm wondering if that is what has been wrong with me all along. 

My first story about Colin, well, I was obsessed with Colin too. I had carefully created him for many years from bits and pieces of wonderful rock legends. He was my ultimate rock star and I was his ultimate fan.

Picture the Bruce Springsteen video from the eighties where he picks the young and beautiful but unsuspecting girl from the audience to dance on stage with him during the song. We all know now that it was an actress and she was paid to do that but wasn't that the best fantasy? Was I the only one who concocted an entire love story for them after they left the stage?

So, obsession. Perhaps that is what actually motivates me to write. Perhaps my last two male characters haven't been 'all that and a bag of chips' and I'm not obsessed enough with them. Perhaps I need to work on those guys some more, make them more interesting and appealing to me, so that they will be the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing I think of at night.

I can't tell you what a small but important breakthrough this has been for me. I always assumed it was the story idea that fed me but now I guess it's simply ... the guy.

And truly...I'm okay with that!

While waiting patiently for the end of February to come to find out about the Amazon/Penguin Breakthrough Novel contest I just read Rachel Firasek's blog post from Kendall Grey called The Five Stages of Contest Grief. Wow. Very funny and very true.

For too long I have allowed others to determine my self worth with their opinions. I will always care what people think about my writing but I shouldn't change what I do or how I do it just because of them.