Well I do. It's part of my other life, you know the one where I get paid to observe people and tell their stories through photographs instead of words.
There's one big difference between photographing a wedding and writing a novel: time.
It took me five months to write Mystique.
At a wedding I generally have about five minutes to figure out what I want to do before the bride and groom, and everyone else involved in the photos, starts wondering why they're still standing in one spot. DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
I don't have the option of turning to the bride and saying, "Do you mind if I wander over into those trees so I can listen to some inspiring music? You see I really need to figure out what your exact motivation is in the next shot."
And believe me, there are days when I'd love to do just that.
Sometimes the light is perfect and the location inspires and everywhere I look I have ideas of awesomeness.
And then sometimes... I've got nothing.
The reason I'm blogging about this today is because, well, I have this deadline stalking me right now and a few days ago I sat down at the computer and typed out some words that later fell prey to the delete button and I thought back on those days when I was writing Mystique and how I would throw my hands up in the air and admit defeat. "Today is NOT a writing day!" I would say. And then I'd get up from the computer, possibly stick my tongue out at it a few times, and then GO DO SOMETHING ELSE!
But I don't have that freedom right now. Every day is a writing day until THIS BOOK IS DONE!
Thankfully I'm in a much better place today than I was a few days ago.
Notice how most of the words in this post aren't capitalized and surrounded by exclamation marks. Notice how I didn't tell you about that dream I had where my editor was standing in a field, dressed in a wedding gown, except her wedding gown was made out of pages from my book.
Instead I've left you a photo of my beautiful wedding cake. Isn't it pretty?
So. That should tell you something.
