Crawling into the hole

For some reason, writing book two has been like pulling eye teeth for me. I can't seem to get into the groove of writing, and with a hard deadline fast approaching, this is starting to wear on me. As I was driving around today doing some errands, I was thinking about the next few chapters that have to be written, and it occurred to me that I might be putting off writing this next section because of where I have to go with it mentally.

In the first book, Secrets in the Shadows, there were certainly dark passages but, for the most part, the characters didn't fall inside that darkness for an extended period. Book two is completely different. In 'Under the Moon's Shadow', some very bad things - traumatic things - happen to the heroine. She goes through some very rough trials emotionally and physically, and in order to accurately represent the pain, anger and disillusionment she experiences, I have to be able to go down that rabbit hole with her. Normally I don't think I would have an issue doing that, but I just managed to crawl out of that miasma of depression and anger myself. I have no desire to go back and visit so soon. Without going into tremendous detail, I had a very painful change, a loss, in my family unit last summer, and it sent me reeling. It was something that was completely unexpected, and I was unprepared to deal with it. Thank God for my husband and three close friends who patiently saw me through it and supported me. In any event, I don't think I really started pulling myself out of the mire until around Easter, and things just were better one day. I was driving down the road listening to the Foo Fighters' "Times Like These" and it occurred to me that the song was right on. The lyric goes "It's times like these, you learn to live again" and though I had listened to that song hundreds of times, I heard it that day differently than I had before. I realized then that everything would be okay, and I was so happy to finally be able to move past my anger and grief and return once again to the cheerful, somewhat optimistic person I normally am. Now, facing these next few chapters, I'm not looking forward to revisiting that place, those emotions. I know I have to though, if I want this book to be as real and believable as it should be.

Part of the reason I write is to share experiences with people and hopefully help them see a different perspective, a different way of looking at similar problems they might be having. Okay, hopefully none of my readers have had shops vandalized or have been chased by crazed family members, but I know the emotional issues my characters deal with are issues that affect thousands, if not millions of people, every day. If I can get a message through to one person who is suffering similarly, and that message changes that person's life for the better, then I've done my job. That is why it is so important to me to get it right, to present this turmoil in a realistic way and have the characters deal with issues realistically.

I suppose when it is all said and done, fear is what is holding me back - the fear that if I crawl into the hole with my heroine, I won't be able to pull us back out. It is an irrational fear - I know intellectually that I'll be safe. Now I just have to convince my emotional self that it is so.