I’m finding that to go forward from this point, I need to be honest about the emotions of my main characters. And that means mentally inhabiting their world, the choices they have to make, and the true consequences of their choices. The fact I’ve never had to make such stark decisions myself is part of what makes this so difficult.

If I wrote my nightmares, I’d be writing post-apocalyptic thrillers. I do believe any strong emotion is fertile fictional soil.

I have to keep on trying — I love this quote of Agnes de Mille’s: “Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.”

Thanks again

Your recommendation is key to my battle against procrastination. When I’m procrastinating, it’s usually a sign that my fear is getting the better of me. It’s also a good sign — usually, the more a writing project scares me, the greater the idea’s potential and the more treasure the fear-monster is guarding.

Once I get past the fear, there are a bunch of other emotions all tied up too…but that is for another post. Thanks again Robin