I've written over 20,000 words (there's the word count) but I don't want to write anymore. I took yesterday off, filled it with things that seemed quite necessary and good, but didn't write a line. And today -- well, it's late in the day, relatively speaking, and I haven't put pen to paper yet.

You see, my main character has this dog. Son of a bitch, why did I give her a dog? Because she needed something to confide in -- she is so alone in this world I've created. She's surrounded by people, but so alone, that she needed to have something for companionship -- so I gave her a dog. But now she has to leave town, and I don't know what to do with it.

This goes right to the core of my being, this question does. I have had to give up animals before -- but only one dog. And it was horrible. I will never forget the look in his eye as he was loaded into the back of someone else's car, with the assurances that 'we'll look after Ferguson, don't you worry about it." (I couldn't make the woman understand his name was Fergus. Fergus the Wonderdog. And yeah, there's a story there. There's a story every where. Life is laden with them. Sometimes you can drown in them. I feel like I am.)

Then we left town, driven out of our home by a recession that felt like a depression. And we all looked a bit like Fergus, glancing out the back window of our car as we drove away from our home, hopefully to something better (don't you worry about it). It wasn't. And I don't think Fergus went to anything better. I made a mistake, doing what I did to that dog. And now, I can't just let my main character's dog go -- can't just turn him loose on the streets to fend for himself, can't even give him to the next door neighbour to look after for a few days -- because the main character's's not coming back. And I can't do that to another dog. Not even one I've made up.

Is there more here than just giving up a dog? Yep. Call it my backstory. and I have to fight it, every time I put pen to paper. Because no matter how I wrap my main characters, I'm there, peeking out from their eyes. And the self examination, the digging around to figure out why the heck the character is acting that way and finding out it's me -- it's one of my "things," and then trying desperately to distance myself so I can write it from her and not from me -- well, it gets pretty hard sometimes. And that would be the biggest understatement I've written, so far.

Oh yeah. I want to be a writer. Seems like it could be some fun.

'Kay, enough bitching. It's time to move my character on. I guess I'll just have to cry through the bit when she pats the dog on the head and tells him to be a good boy, and then leaves, knowing that he will wait his whole life for her to come back. Just like I did, when it was me.