Reminiscing and Starting

As of lately I seem to be listening to music that I remember listening to when I was younger.  I am not sure why all of a sudden I'm listening to George Strait, John Michael Montgomery, Trisha Yearwood and the Dixie Chicks, but I am and loving every minute of it!  I think that all have these moments in life when we just stop and look back at where we've been.

While listening to these songs, I'm thinking about my WIP.  What kind of things bring Lucy back to her past?  What things will she think about?  What are her reactions to her thought?  How do others react to her things that make her remember?

I find these just as important as the book, I mean the part of what happened before the book with the characters.  I'm not sure about all of you people out there with the novels that you read but I know that with the novels that I read that most all of them have allusions to the characters' pasts.

What are your character's pasts?  Mine?  Well she's just 17 and has been secluded from most of society besides little adventures into town and the social parties that she snuck into when her nanny wasn't watching, but she does have an older sister that did crazy things with her and told her great long tales about balls and such.

One thing that I do to keep all of my characters pasts in order is I take a piece of paper and write their name at the top and list things that I think are of importance to know about the character's past.  It takes a bit of time and can be a bit tedious, but I find that it is completely worth the time to do it!

Picture from Wikipedia

Now on to the second part of the blog: Starting.  That is one scary word: starting.  I am having issues doing the action that the word describes.  I have begun to type my historical YA, I've done a decent amount of research and I've read a lot of books that come from this time period as well so I have a basic understanding of the Regency Era.  I have my outline ready beside me, a few little notes I've taken, my hands are at the ready, and.... nothing.  Yup, a big fat nothing is happening.  So what do I do you ask?  I go on blogger, I go to absolutewrite, I go look at fish on aquabid.  Yeah, go me!  I realized that my issue is that I'm not sure where to begin, I want so much for this story yet nothing is happening.  I completely understand that I am supposed to basically force myself to write, but that isn't happening.  I guess that I'll try a few different starting points and try going from there.  Anyone had anything like this happen to you?  I bet that it happens millions of times everyday, and I'm just experiencing them right now.  Ugg, I'll try to put my Jane Austen thinking cap on and write.

Have fun out there!  Also, it's been almost a week that I've had this blog!  Whoo-hoo!