Horses and Turn-of-the-Century Men Beware

These Monday creativity posts are getting addictive. Both writing them and, I hope for you, reading them.

So tell me…what are some of the problems you come up against in your craft? Not the I-don’t-have-enough-time ones, but the technical ones. I’d love to hear of others’ struggles.

Me? Today?

Lately I’ve got two problemos — the first one is I’m a baby, the second one is I’m not a man.

Let me explain.

Problem #1. I have a psycho in my book. It’s 1895, so that in itself is rough. But what do psychos do back before the turn of the century? Murder, arson, rape. The usual. I want my bad guy to set a livery on fire, killing one (or a number) of horses.

And I can’t do it.

I know it’s all not real, that the horses are nothing more than letters on a computer screen. But horses are important to my hero and no better way than to get his ire on fire than to destroy one or many of his horses. I know how I would feel if I read that. I would hate the bad guy tenfold.

But it’s so cruel to the horses.

I’m such a baby.

My second problem is that this third book is really the same story as the second book but told from the man’s point of view. A man of the turn of the century.

I’m an emotional modern woman to begin with. I hated the play “My Fair Lady” because of the awful things Henry Higgins said to Eliza Doolittle. My hero can have a little forward-thinking in him, but he is not a modern man by any means. Every writer wants their lead man to be rugged and bold with that soft center of melted caramel. I too want that, but I just don’t think that’s a real man in 1895. They talk different, they think different, they have different morals and values than today’s men.

So I don’t know how to write him either, without him being me on the page.

I did want this book to be different. To be a challenge. To be more literary than a romantic novel.

Beware of what you ask for.

What are your problems? Have you solved them? Any advice? Need any advice?

All of creativity has to be easier than me murdering an innocent barn of horses by fire….