In a little of a Pickle…

I am having trouble writing. Yes! I thought it was weird too! I mean, I finally have the story content I have been longing for, but I simply don't seem to be able to translate it all onto paper. I have my African tale – the story that can finally combine my heritage with all the syfy fantasy stuff I'm always gorging myself on. I even have a 'Christian' story all ready to go. I mean, I have a decent outline of each of these in my head. How can I still have writer's block? I don't understand it! I am starting to think that maybe I really have lost it. Maybe my writing was one of those don't-use-it-you-loose-it gigs. Have I really lost my ability to write? Will I honestly end up an unpublished wannabe forever? Is this the end of me? Please God no. As I write this, think this, everything within me wails in grim denial and despair.

Or maybe it is just the artist in me being all dramatic.

I honestly don't know how I would survive without the characters in my head. Yes, I know that made me sound like a candidate for the loony farm, but it's true. All those characters I invent, the brave heroines, the dashing heroes. They get to do all sorts of things I only ever dream about. They get to say things that I wish could come out of my mouth. They are brave and don't hide from their problems. Thing happen to them – exciting things that can never possibly happen to me. They don't lead boring lives where nothing happens to them. They don't sit around biting their nails waiting for adventure to come. They go for it. They seize the day. They are everything I am not and if I could not live vicariously through them, I would die – seriously wither up and simply die.

Of course, if these characters simply stayed in my head and never made it to the page, then maybe I am a candidate for the loony farm. They need to live. I have to bring them to life. I am killing them by not writing their stories, and by extension am killing myself right along with them. I have to snap out of this. I have to. I simply have to figure out how…