I’m going to make a confesion about my writing, and hope that it doesn’t make me neurotic and that I’m not the only one.

I love my male characters. They’re like…my own personal imaginary harem. Except some of them don’t get along. But I have shaped these main characters out of molds of traits I find attractive. Even their flaws are ones I can tolerate. Sometimes they’re even endearing flaws…to me anyway…I don’t suspect what I find endearing is anywhere near what a lot of people can put up with.

My female characters…they’re a little different. I don’t like them as much. I mean, in a way I do. I love writing them. Being in their heads. Seeing the world through their eyes. Because like the guys, they’re based off certain ideals. They all share aspects of my personality, and in addition have traits I wish I had.

Yes, I live vicariously through my writing. It’s true.

It is possibly why, even though it’s never been intentional, my girls are never rescued by their knight in shining armor in the story. Not in the end. Not because I’m a hardcore femenist, but because that’s just the way I am. My daydreams aren’t about someone coming and taking me away from it all. They’re about a kind of give-and-take where both parties learn and grow.

Yeah, I’m boring like that ^_^

This is all awesome fun, and makes it really easy to write certain things, and very emotionally draining to write others. It also means there’s always a potential for my girls and guys to be attracted to each other, even if they’re not intended to hook up with each other.

It has…occasionally…completely destroyed restructured some of my plots. Usually I just hook them up in my head to see how things go and then I use their reactions to build stronger characters on paper.

So…I’ve been going really strong on my revisions this week. I’ve been patching up 2, 3, 4 chapters a day. And then I hit yesterday. It wasn’t a good day emotionally, and it had nothing to do with my writing.

But I knew what I wanted to write. And I got it on paper and it was absolutely epic (okay, it was decent enough to be acceptable). And I started to write more…and my brain was like “Oh, you know what would be REALLY epic? If we hooked Ronnie up with that one guy she’s never meant to couple with ever. You’ve already mentioned he’s nearby. It’ll be fun. You know how much you love him…”

And I knew it was time to walk away. Because yes, I adore him. But she doesn’t. Well, she does, but not like that. It’s a very platonic relationship, and she’d probably stop talking to me again for many months if I tried to hook her up with someone other than…

Anyway. When my brain starts trying to write in plot elements I know don’t belong, it’s time for me to take a break and walk away.

I’m not the only one who lives vicariously through my chracters, am I?