Thirteen Years of Writer’s Block

What did you want to be as a kid?

For me, the answer to that question was always a writer.

Even before I knew how to write, I’d fill entire sketchbooks with elaborate stories told in crayon stick figures.

[image error]I’d like to think my dialog has improved since then.

So I graduated from college and jumped right on that author thing, right?

Not exactly.

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From 2002 to 2015, I didn’t write anything more than a grocery list (or maybe a quick poem on the back of that grocery list).

Yup…I had thirteen years of writer’s block.

The problem wasn’t a lack of ideas. I’ve always had tons of crazy ideas. The problem was me. All my story ideas seemed to involve too much sex, or too much romance, or too many wildly implausible things like magic and other worlds.

They just weren’t Serious or Literary.

So I gave up.

Oddly enough, having kids pushed me back into the world of writing.

When my daughter turned four, she started to have opinions about what she wanted to do when she grew up. And it dawned on me that, someday, I’d have to tell her I had a dream once too, back when I was a kid.

But I gave it up when the going got tough.

So, once she started kindergarten, I decided to give this writing thing another whirl. Only this time, I ditched the Serious and the Literary.

And I decided to write the kind of book I’d like to read.

The result is my first novel, The Trickster’s Lover, a whirlwind romance between Norse god Loki and University of Chicago graduate student Caroline. It’s filled with sex, magic, other realms, and the end of the world.

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I’m not claiming it’s either Serious or Literary.

But it was a heck of a lot of fun.