Right now I'm writing a difficult story. I know this. I know it's tough.
I knew it was going to be tough to write. The story is very close to a situation that happened to a friend. It's not exact, no, because that would be impossible. But the idea of justice in the story, that is a very real feeling for me in regards to this friend.
Yesterday, it almost broke me. I got overwhelmed with the idea that even in a story world, I could not bring justice to this friend. The story was going too slowly, and the main character just didn't act. It wasn't that he didn't have enough motivation to act, he just...didn't. He was paralyzed with inaction, and it was tearing me apart.
I broke down in tears yesterday, and sobbed. I felt like I completely failed my friend, by failing to make this story good or to make this story real. I felt, and I still somewhat feel, that I will be failing my friend if this story is not the best it can be.
I had to majorly rework the story to justify why the character was not active right now. I had to introduce some sort of doubt into the story. Cause if he had no reason not to, then he should've acted already. But, because of the constraints of the story, I couldn't let that happen.
I really ought to not exorcise my personal demons in my prose writing.
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It isn't that it's a bad thing to exercise your personal demons through story---you just probably shouldn't use an assignment as an excuse to do so. Assignments have expectations and deadlines. In the story world, their must be reasons for the characters actions, explainations and reasons for why they feel the way they do. In real life, those reasons are often illogical, often even nonexistant or existant on a level that is not understandable. Many times, there are not words for such things, hence putting them into a story is beyond ambitious but near impossible. Don't let yourself feel like you've failed. Don't let your worries of writing prose after such a long period of not putting your prose skills to use overcome you. You can write. You can write well. You are, in fact, an exceptional writer who is particularly hard on herself (which can be good, because otherwise how will you grow?) and I have confidence in you.
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