hello darkness, my old friend

Let me set the scene for you.

The air inside the cabin is dank and musty, and you feel your allergies acting up, so you step outside on to the rough wood porch overlooking rolling fields.  The sun is just creeping up behind the farthest green hill, and the sky is splattered in pink and blue.  You're not alone on the porch, even though it's just barely sunrise.  But you're not surprised.

Leaning against the dipped wood rail, her hands are wrapped tight around the bone china teacup.  She doesn't say anything to you; just flicks her short red hair over her shoulder and takes a sip.  It's a little strange, seeing an experienced army pilot watching the sunrise and drinking herbal tea from a cup painted with dainty yellow flowers.

Meet Jylouna Martin.

She is my nemesis.

For the last I-don't-know-how-many-weeks I have been fighting a silent battle with her.  I avoid writing in her perspective because she simply disapproves of it.  Just.  Can't.  Get.  Into.  Her.  Voice.  Ever. I love her character (I love all my characters) but whenever I read back what I have written I feel like crumbling up a piece of paper and throwing it violently at... something.  Only I write on my computer, and it's harder to crumble my laptop screen.

I was pacing back and forth in my room when I reopened Chapter Four of Fate for editing.  Partially because Jyla was up to her old "you're-going-to-write-in-my-voice?--I-think-not" tricks, but my difficulties were also coming from a different character:  Timothy Brown.  Since my goal is to finish 'Tweens by the end of the year, I've been writing, even thinking a lot in Timmy's voice.  So as I was trying to write Jyla, I was writing Timmy.  Editing is slow.

Ever have that problem?  A character voice you have a lot of trouble writing in?  What is your greatest difficulty when switching efforts from one work-in-progress to another?

Also, I wanted to share this.  I know I'm three months early, but I just discovered the band All Caps and I thought maybe some people could relate to the sentiment of this video.