Happy Accident

Not so much block, but fear. I was talking to my mom today. A long time ago I let her read some of my first novel. My mother is a voracious reader and I was telling her a bit about my new story today on the home from getting take-out and I have this huge story concept and how all my characters are related to each other. I know everything about them, where they come from, how they're all related and who they are, whether or not they are in my stories. Some elements I've taken from my own life of course, as writers I think we all include bits of ourselves into our characters. There are parts of my personality in all my characters, most especially my two main female characters. I don't see either of them, Lena or Isabel as Mary Sues-- but yet-- in some way maybe they have an idealized or less idealized sense of myself. Neither of them are only children and they have done some things I wish I'd done, probably the old, if I went back to high school, I would have done things differently kind of thing, but they aren't really me. But they're my creations and for all their faults I love them and I do want to share their stories... and yet here I am, worried about showing them to my mother. I think she has an interesting enough life that I could probably write a story about it. There is a sadness about my mother, all that childhood angst and drama that makes good story telling, but there's no way I am capable or ready to write the really deep, personal stories that are in my head. That's why none of my characters have ever been an only child. My characters don't come from perfect families but the families I've given them are far more functioning than my own or my mother's. I really would love to write my aunts into a story, but I'm afraid it might not go over well, so I try to keep out personal relationships. ;-)

Oh.... also, I think the Santa Fe Real Estate community, my peers, would be great fodder for fiction. I *know* Annette Benning's character from "American Beauty" but that's an aside.

I wrote fanfic for years, I posted all my Highlander stories, I kept my WIPs up on the Internets for a while and had no problem with thousands of people reading those stories, which, while using canon characters were original stories, written by me, with plots I created from the depths of my mind, but why am I having a hard time sharing with my mom. If anyone who would understand my settings, my characters and my plots, it would be she?

trixiesficused to be my sounding board and I'm not signaling her out for any reason but I miss talking writing with her. I talk about my new story with schaden_freude and she's ever so patient and sweet to put up with me and the world of fanfic was a great place to be because I had beta readers and friends who'd let me talk fic with them for hours. I guess I'm feeling isolated back in my world of original fic and need a gentle reminder that writing can be a very quiet, very lonely place sometimes.

So, I'm wondering if any of you feel this way sometimes writing fiction of any kind, (fanfic or original). I'm not looking for cheerleaders or volunteers to read my stuff, I'm just speaking outloud and wondering if I'm really alone in these observations.