Friday Favourites - Struggling with the WIP and the sexy cowboy

The WIP (that's "Work In Progress" for the non-writerly) is kicking my butt right now. I love this story. Seriously, I love it, I love my characters, I cry for them and for what I'm putting them through, but some days, geez, I hate it too. Does that make sense?

This isn't much of a start for something that's titled Friday Favourite is it? Oops. Meh, it's Friday, I'm blogging, and this is what's on my mind.

So I love this story and I hate it at the same time. That's got to be a good thing creatively, right? Not just something that's going to drive me slowly insane? (Please! Give me an answer! Not a rhetorical question!) Given that where I'm at right now is a place that I hate, I'd try to remind myself what it is that I love about this story.

First off, there's my hero. He's hot. Seriously--if he was real, I'd do him. My CPs agree. I have a photo that inspired him, and it's a little NSFW, sorry, but here you go. I guarantee you'll be pleased I posted it. My friends and I used to call him the sexy cowboy. For obvious reasons.

(No source, sorry. If you know, let me know and I'll credit it. I did try Googling "naked tattooed cowboy" images, and while that was immensely entertaining, it didn't produce any results as such.)

Of course, he doesn't get around naked like that in the book. (Well, not very often, anyway.) And he only has one tattoo, but he does rock the beard.

Pretty much this whole book sprung from that photo. Oh, and some red wine. (It'll make sense when you read it.)

Speaking of wine, the story is set in a fictional version of the Yarra Valley, amongst the grapevines of a vineyard. It's winter, in my story, so there aren't any lush grapes or green leaves, but it's still quite a spectacular spot. In my head, it looks a little like this:

No credit needed here, because this is my photo. I took it on a trip to Coonawarra in South Australia with a dear friend. For one of the days we were there, we hired a driver to drive our car while we tried every wine we could get our mitts on. We bought A LOT of wine on that trip. Seriously, on the drive back, our luggage was on the back seat because the back (a station wagon!) was full.

And my heroine. Oh boy. She's complicated. She's pretty, of course, but a little unique looking too, and she's got an inner wild-child streak a mile-wide. A bit like this.

(Sorry, another photo with no source attribution. I copied this one and the other one before I figured out I'd do things like blog about them and the proper thing to do would be to provide credits.)

She's carrying around the weight of the world and being in her head is almost painful. She's been through so much and I'm just making her go through more. You really should feel sorry for my characters. I torture them unbearably.

I think it's incredibly dull to read about other people's music preferences. Almost as dull as reading about their kids and pets. However this post wouldn't be complete without me mentioning my WIP's soundtrack. Every story I write has one. Sometimes the music has no relevance at all to the story -- it's just about the feeling or the vibe of the song that somehow meshes with the words I'm writing. And sometimes the music itself is incredibly embarrassing. Why, I think to myself, am I listening to that? My musical tastes are usually well outside the top 40, but then suddenly, I'm listening to some classic rock or ridiculous pop and thinking yes, yes, that's it!

Unsurprisingly, this book has been accompanied by many sad songs. But one song that I'm hoping will get me to the end is "We Belong" by Pat Benatar. Because if there's one truth about these two, it's that they Do. Belong. Together.

And on that note, it's time to get back to writing. Take it away Pat. Get us to "The End".

Enjoy your Fridays, all!