I Am Spiderman ... or Rapunzel

I don't always join in on Road Trip Wednesdays but today's question was an easy one for me.
What are your writing and publishing superpowers (drafting? beta-reading? writing queries? plotting? character creation? etc.) -- and what's your kryptonite?
I wouldn't call these my superpowers but the two elements of writing that I love doing the most are:
Character Creation and Beta-Reading.

I spend a lot of time researching characters, obsessing about quirks, imagining them as I drive. I thrive on this, thinking about what could be.

Getting it down on paper is a different story. That leads me to what I consider kryptonite.

It's all fine and good planning what will generally happen through the book but when I try to write out each scene I get stuck on things like Dialogue and Where the heck am I supposed to go next? The perfectionist in me is very annoying.

It's so much easier to imagine a scene for a friend. That's why I love Beta-Reading, even more than writing (gasp!). Well, in phases. Truthfully, all the books I've read since ... July? Have been un-published and in revisions. I just love being a part of the process and being under the delusion that I'm helping improve a work of art (ego much?).

I learn so much from seeing how writer's change and evolve their work. It reminds me that I can get my own book done if only I would put words down on the page. After all, I love to revise, it's not the end of the world if I have to redo most of it in the end.

What are your Superpowers?  How do you deal dith weaknesses?

Quotes From Friends: Part 1

These last few months I have been on a writing fast. Or maybe I should say "drought" because I wasn't exactly willing. I know we say this all the time but now I'm thinking it's really true - My mommy brain is a glob of mush and lost all juices of creativity.Looking back at the evidence I'm starting to believe it. Even my WIP, Treachery, was a play that I wrote in university (before kids). I took it and started turning it into a novel but once I got to the the point where I had to change the story, have new ideas, I froze (and have written only a few pages in months). Ack!
It's all dry, like in this poem (I only wrote the last stanza after having my first baby).

So, while investigating my old projects, I came across a collection I put together of quotes from emails. I don't have the emails anymore, so most of the lines are a mystery, and who said them. (each colour is a different person and the lines are in chronological order)

Part 1: June-December 2001 (grade 12)

Hey there Tough Guy

You really scared me.

"I need excitement from other lands.
To lighten the load from my hands.
I ask with all humbleness:
May I have your number Ms.?"

nice to me is something really stupid like a plastic pony.

yes its true, i did have a crush on you. happy almost birthday.

you dont wear depends do you? . that would just be weird.

hehe sucker.

yeah ive seen you cry. but ive never seen you get mad. i think that would be a sight to see.

i was in my litte car that only runs with the use of man power ( my massive legs). mmm kinda sound the the flintstones or maybe even the flintrocks.

why those poopy stinky monkeys! one of these days im gonna beat them!

i dont really wanna be good friends with him anymore...........i dunno maybe i do. but i dont particularly wanna be enemys with him. oh well.

guess what. im not quite sure yet, its still in question, maybe developing. but i think j___ might be my cousin! can you believe that. hes a total spoo! i dont know.........its just a possibility. maybe:s

this dog was holding a green banana. but of course things are never as they seem so this green banana was actually a green monkey egg. and then kaboom the green bananan hatched into a green monkey. and the dog and the green monkey and m__  lived happily ever after.

hey, just because im deaf doesnt mean we still cant dance with each other. it like would be like eating toast but never having cinnamon on it. just crunchy bread. eww thats why i have to dance with you. i dont want to be tasteless crunchy bread my whole life.

ahh i guess im just a short loser with nothing to say. although you were the short one on saturday. hehe sucker, see i am you big brother.

osh kosh bigosh

where its hot and warm and hot and humid and fresh and hot and water, lots of water.

due to my lack of inteligence, this email is really screwed up. kinda like me so i will talk to you later.




So, after reading these (along with parts 2 and 3) I can maybe see where some of my inspiration came from.

Is anyone else out there looking for ways to get their creativity back? Have any advice?