The dog is watching me pack. Every time I stop moving, she tries to climb into my lap. She has an opinion about what is happening, and it is very low. Her worried look would be charming if it wasn’t so very worried.

In un-related frustration, writing about a character who knows the future in the same book as a character who has various angelic abilities is somewhat maddening. I’m halfway through and continually stumped by the “well, wouldn’t she know that?” and the “couldn’t she handle that?” type questions. But I’m bringing my iPad keyboard with me because even at my current rate of eking out a few sentences at a time, I really love Nat and I don’t want to leave her behind for ten whole days.

Akira is cautious. Sylvie is a planner. But Natalya is orderly. And having her order messed up is stressing her out. In the sense that all the characters I write are really just parts of me, I’m pretty clearly working out my anxiety issues on paper. (Um, pixels.) But that said, there’s something about what’s happening with Natalya right now — in my head, anyway, if not quite in the pixels yet — that is just plain fun. A long time ago, I had a bumper sticker on my car, selected by R, that read “Not another learning experience!” Nat is having learning experiences and she doesn’t like it. But they’re good for her and she’ll wind up better off in the long run, so it’s okay, and meanwhile, I get to feel both sympathetic and amused.

I’ve already planned out Grace’s story (more or less) so I know it’s not going to have anything to do with anxiety. Grace is not the anxious-type. But eventually I’m going to give an HEA to a character who has full-fledged panic attacks. Maybe I’ll write…oh, no, I won’t. I was going to say that I’d write the first agoraphobic romance, but I’ve actually seen one before. It’s erotica, and I haven’t read it, but for fellow agoraphobes, Escorted, by Claire Kent features an agoraphobic hero. (I think, anyway.)

Moving on, back to the packing. Or maybe back to eking out another sentence or two. It would be convenient for me to be able to post my latest chapter to fictionpress tonight, so that it’s easily accessible from my iPad tomorrow. Hmm, good motivation.