The XX XY Files

Dear Reader, 

My story is set in small town, 50s America. It’s about a relationship between a serial killer and a girl (feel lucky, I don’t usually share even that much of a story I’m working on). Straight away, I’m thinking “is anybody going to want to see this?”. I know, that’s what any writer thinks. Is anyone going to be interested in my story, but you have to try to imagine what it will be like to someone else. Showing interaction between men and women is quite often considered taboo these days and I’m wondering if it will affect the appeal of my story. 
What I’m talking about most of all, is the relationship between men and women. It’s like they’re not allowed to interact anymore without someone saying one of them is being mysogynistic or the other is extremely feminist. People love labels though, don’t they? I love watching all the 90s high school movies, typically where a girl undergoes some magical transformation and is so damn hot that all the guys want to get in her pants. They just don’t make those movies anymore. I don’t see why not. The girl is always the same girl as she was before. But nooooo, can’t make those movies anymore because it’s demeaning to women that they have to meet a guys standards. Excuse me, but she could have said no to her magical makeover.
I used to watch a tv show called Stalker, I think it got cancelled in the end. But, not before everyone was calling the show mysogynistic because it was about a man obsessively stalking a woman. Oh my God. How dare he?…… It’s a tv show. Men stalk women all the time. Women stalk men all the time. I don’t understand why we’re not allowed to have a tv show about it. 
Anyway, I was just thinking about how my story might be received with some of these things in mind. I love the relationship between men and women. We are different. I like exploring those differences and especially as my story is set when it is, it adds a whole different element to that relationship. Society was different. 
Thanks for reading

Xxx

Pretty Women

Dear Reader,
How one describes the appearance of female character seems to fall in 2 different camps. One can either describe particular parts of their appearance: hair, eyes, mouth, curvy, skinny, OR one goes down the hot, sexy, pretty, attractive, gorgeous, ugly, dumpy route. Personally, I go for describing the actual physical attributes, because I think that surely describing a character as just ‘attractive’ is leaving it all rather vague. 
Attractive. 
How can a character be cast from the word ‘attractive’? Attractive to who? I suppose people might just mean ‘generally attractive to all’. Or I suppose they could mean ‘anyone, as long as they aren’t ugly as sin’. It’s a little lazy in opinion. The writer must clearly have an image of their character in mind, but for some reason they won’t write it in their story. It could be that, in their mind they are leaving the image of the character open to the reader to fill with their own version of what attractiveness would be. Again, how is someone supposed to be cast like that? 
It is perhaps supposed to be signifying that as soon as said female enters the company of others, all the men suddenly will have their tongues lolling out their mouths and drool forming a pool by their feet, because the female is…attractive.  Could be. Could very possibly be. There must be a reason why the writer would choose such a blah word. But, I can’t imagine leaving such an important part of character left so ambiguous in my own writing! 
If you want a good laugh by the way, please go to this Twitter account @femscriptintros

Thanks for reading 

Xxx

Doubt

Dear Reader, 
I am doubting my story. I am doubting my writing. I am doubting myself. 
I have a good idea for a story, one that I am beginning to form fully in my head and think about the characters and picturing the scene etc. What I am struggling with at the moment is getting it written. I can write great sentences in my head. I’ve got almost perfect dialogues going and vivid descriptions! My problem comes when I actually sit in front of my laptop and start to write. The words just vanish. I feel like all the words and way of writing that I once knew has completely gone and all I can write are basic things. Basic words and basic sentences that wouldn’t get a pass in primary school. 
Sometimes it feels like my ability to write has gone from me. Disappeared. Evaporated. In my head, it’s great, but it struggles to get from there, through my fingers and onto a page in the same form. I read something this morning in a novel and I felt it perfectly described how I feel right now – “Your imagination is paralysed”. That is how it feels. It isn’t doing what I want it to do, what I know it can do. 
I hope this passes soon. I keep picking up new ideas and writing them down in my notebook because I know they will be a good addition to my story, but I need to get to a point where my fingers can translate what I am saying in my brain before I even attempt to write it all down. I haven’t even written one line yet and I’ve been sitting on this same story for months. 
What’s happening to me?
Xxx