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The wall - anyone who has ever had to write anything can probably understand the feeling of hitting the wall. That feeling when you sit down to write and your mind goes completely blank. Writer's block is a common term used for the feeling, but I heard someone (I think it was Giovanna Fletcher) describe it as a wall, and there was something about that analogy that resonated with me.
I've come up against the wall so many times in life, and (until recently) I've let it scare me away from my writing. I would start with an idea, get a little way into the story, and then freeze. I took that as a sign that what I was writing wasn't any good, and I would give up. When I wrote Reflection of Me it came so quickly and there was never a wall to overcome that it gave me a confidence in my writing that I'd never had before. It also made me a little bit cocky.
When I started writing Vixens' Diner, I envisioned it going as smoothly as Reflection of Me did. It did not. I struggled with the story in the beginning, elements that I thought sounded great before I started writing weren't working, and one day I sat down to write and couldn't get a single word out. I figured that was it for that book. I set it aside, but fortunately I had other ideas to work on. I started working on ideas for three different books, and spent six months with Vixens' Diner nagging at the back of my mind.
It became a challenge for me, if I could somehow break through the wall it would be (in my mind) one more example that I was on the write path in my pursuit of being an author. The wall was big, and scary, but I knew there was away through it. My story was decent, the idea was something I liked, and I knew I could turn it into a book I would want to read. I just needed to have faith in myself, and persevere.
I'm not really sure what caused the wall to crumble. Perhaps it was just time (months of mulling over the idea finally working it's way through the wall), or maybe it was just sheer determination. Whatever the cause, one morning I woke up and the wall was gone. Suddenly the ideas were flowing faster than I could get them written. I was falling more in love with the book than I could have ever imagined. I hit a few more walls during the writing process, but they were smaller, and nowhere near as frightening; I was able to work through them in a matter of days, or sometimes hours. More importantly I was able to finish my book - and I have never been so proud of something I've worked on.
The wall will always come, it may be small and easily over come, or it may be a towering fortress that takes months to work through. The only thing I think that helps is the understanding that it is possible to get through the wall, if that's what you choose to do.