G.C.L.

I love Gail Carson Levine.  Her stories and her blog.  I have gotten over a couple rough spots with help from her writing prompts at the end of each post.

For example:  About a year ago, I was having trouble feeling like my writing was anything worth doing.  I mean, what do I write after all?  Just fluff.  It's not life-changing (although it is for me).  I love the stories I commit to writing, but I didn't feel I was doing anything justice.  I was a failure.  That's all I thought about every time I sat to write.

Then I went to her blog for no reason other than I love Gail Carson Levine.  I may have mentioned that.  And she gave a writing prompt that went something like this:  Write a story about a girl named Aster who has writer's block.  What does she do to get over it?  What causes it?

I started writing.  It turned into something that I still work on occasionally, though not seriously.  It's a girl who has to write fairy tales as payment to keep the life she wants with the family she wants.  And to keep from turning green, one digit at a time.  I keep that story and work on it whenever I feel the urge to criticize something before I even start creating it.

Does anyone else do that?  It can't be just me, can it?

Hello?

Anyone?