A Writer's Nightmare

OMG Writers!
I had quite the nightmare that I'm sure most of you would cower in fear from!
So, it was a simple dream. It went fairly well and like most of my dreams lately, it seemed to be fairly coherent as to what was going on. Basically, my netbook, my flash drive of my current projects and a bag of my carry-on belongings were stolen! Not to mention, one of my roommates was furiously not allowing me into the house. So, I used my other roommate to distract him while I slipped inside and scrounged around for my belongings. I found Harry Potter: Deathly Hollows part 2 on DVD and quickly pocketed it. They had not pawned it from my bag yet. I could not find my netbook or flash drive anywhere. And as an author, that is one of the scariest feelings. My entire world is contained in that netbook. My life is living in that flash drive. You can't recreate your work because once you've lost it, it is hard to find the same words. Sure, it might make it better by restarting it, but it also, you lose that initial excitement of getting your first ideas out. I was heartbroken.
And then I realized that the two guys who stole my bag were now living in the other two rooms at our place. My roommate was a traitor! He had sided with them!
My sister could not distract the roommate long enough and he found me. He apologized for being so mean and not letting me into the house. I could feel myself starting to wake up. And at that moment, I saw the bag sitting off on the bookcase! My netbook, flash drive and Scream 4 were all there!
I woke up with relief...but a slight annoyance that I let my nightmare end so easily.
I pray I never lose my files again. I've only lost one story...and it is weak for it.
But I woke up and realized I back my shit up consistently. I have, like, a flash drive at work, a flash drive in my purse, my netbook is up to date and two external hard drives that have backups. Not to mention, the other flash drives and computers I own. I really hope I get the flash drive bracelet for Christmas.

Happy Writing, Writers.
And backup your files.

Panda, as in Panda Bear

This new story is a struggle. I mean, I've had writer's block before and I've had stories that rip up my emotions but this one has it's own mess of internal issues. It came to me first by way of emotions. You can't write a book based on emotions. When all you get is that feeling coursing through your veins and the descriptions of such strong emotions, you just have to sit back and wait for the story to come to you or you have to make the conscious effort to push it in your direction. Either way, I was focused on my nano-inspired story and tried to focus my attention on one muse at a time. But in the back dark corners, this new muse kept peeking around the corner every once in a while. I'd get a glimpse of his yellow blond hair before he darted away. Until finally, he was starting to grow on me and emerge himself. There, now my story had been given a muse to play with. But what to do with him? The ideas had been swimming around my brain for months (and I do mean months) before I finally settled on a few. I found a great underlining story, a character conflict, to fuel some turmoil. Great! But none of this can actually pull together a whole novel--unless I want to amp up the conflict (which I didn't. It's character-driven, not story-driven) or make this into something small (which again, I didn't). So, I pushed through it. And lately it seems like my life would make the perfect story! But why lose that fun? I want to learn the story rather than already live it. So, I decided to play around with the ideas.
And finally it hit me. I had a perfect place for all of this to take place! It fit everything! It encompassed everything I wanted to say! But now I was stuck. I had emotions, a muse, underlining character conflicts and a place to play with them. Again, it was a bit of a waiting game. And thanks to an amazing author of mine, I found a new genre to play in. I already knew her struggles with it but decided to take it on. So now, here it goes. The characters are starting to really define themselves and I am in complete love with them.
This is exciting. This is why I write.