This continued on for several weeks. In my opinion, it is difficult to find anything more painful than writer's block. I wanted to write, but I couldn't. Not only couldn't, but felt like the manuscripts I was trying to work on would make me ill if I touched them. So they sat and I didn't write.

I'd recently become addicted to this show about a vampire slayer and there was this attractive blonde vampire. I'd done Star Trek fan fic and Star Wars fan fic, but I'd thought I left that behind when I'd decided to try to make writing a profession instead of a hobby. I started getting ideas, though, and one day, something bubbled out and got put on paper. One idea led to another, which led to another, which...you get the idea. Suddenly I find I have not one but two series running and I'm writing every day. What's more, I'm experimenting with point of view and emotion, trying to put more punch into the work. It seems to be working. Stuff is getting polished and out to the lists I'm on, I've got a website running, and people are apparently reading it.

Then, I get an idea. The Sunnydale High Class of '99 twenty year reunion. Harmony Kendall is there to cause trouble and Buffy and Spike come home for a visit. But, wait. Why don't they live in Sunnydale? What do they do? How did they end up together? My mind starts working backward, frantically filling in story. Then I get to the image of Spike standing by the Thames in London, discussing the fact Buffy is engaged to another man. No matter how much I try to ignore it, it won't go away. This can't be a series of stories; I realize. This is a novel, one that I need to write. I'd been starting to have renewed interest in the manuscripts I'd set aside some eight months ago, and it was time I got back to that form. Seven Years in the Desert seemed a good way to do it.

A further inducement was the fact this is the type of book I've longed to write for years -- big, sweeping angst, passions running hot, broken heart, betrayal, deep despair and the height of passion. I've tried it before and the results are now buried where no one can find them. I started writing lighter, shallower books that didn't demand the emotional commitment. The time had come for me to try again.

In The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron tells her readers to "leap and the net will appear." This is one of those times I need to trust my instincts and take the leap. I'm asking my characters to; it's only right I do the same. It's going to be very interesting to see what happens.

-- Caro