When real life strikes back at fiction.....

One week and just shy of 8000 words into NaNo and I’ve hit a snag… well no, that’s like the understatement of the day… I’ve hit a bloody great roadblock of concrete, head on, whilst not wearing a seat belt……..

I’ve mentioned before that part of my job involves reading and working on things that, well, aren’t particularly pleasant.  So on Friday I picked up a new file I’d been allocated by The Boss and started to review it.  Turns out it involves the physical and sexual abuse of several young boys over a period of years by an authority figure that they should have been able to trust.

I know these files are difficult for me to deal with, but as part of my job they have to be done and my friends are great in helping to keep my thoughts all pink and fluffy (glitter optional).  So I managed over the weekend to continue to write, and then after working on the file all day yesterday I sat down at the lap top to continue, up came the story, I read back and that was it, nothing.  My mind just screamed at me that writing this was wrong.

Now, the thing is, I don’t usually write contemporary and I don’t do much in the way of planning out a story… that up to my characters to do as I type what they tell me.  I had an idea of where the story was going and part of it involves the escape from a D/s relationship which one of them had got into without understanding the implications of before finding himself to be trapped into something he didn’t want.  Whilst the relationship is in effect off screen, the retelling of some aspects and a rather violent escape weren’t… and this was the big sticking point. Having read the witness statements of the victims in the case I was working on I didn’t feel that I could fictionalise anything even remotely involving any form of abuse as it was all far to horribly real in my head (not helped by having a vivid visual imagination that can put pictures I really don’t want to see in my mind).

So I put the lap top away and picked up a book, then spent some time online trying to find some happy expressions of love and relationships which involve trust and more importantly adults.

This morning my head is a little clearer, though I have to face the file again today, but the sticking point remains.  I can’t write this.

I so wanted to actually complete NaNo this month, but I won’t with this story…  I think I shall stick to writing fantasy based things for a while and keep the realistic slightly further away.