Being OCD

Have you ever had strange quirks that you never realized you had? For as long as I can remember, I've had this thing where food can't touch on my plate. I have to eat food in a certain order. Whatever I begin with, I finish before I eat anything else. It was recently pointed out that when I eat M&Ms I separate the colors into piles and eat each color before beginning the next. My socks, undergarments and shirts must all be the same color. If I'm wearing a red outfit I must wear my red tennis shoes. For black outfits, my black tennis shoes, for all others I wear white. Looking at all these quirks I had an epiphany...I'm a freak. I'd be the perfect girlfriend for a character on USA Network, "Monk". But I also know that I couldn't survive if I had to be any different.

How does this have to do with anything writing related? Well it made me realize why I get constipation of the muse. I have to write in a certain order. Beginning middle, end. Anything that veers from this path makes me extremely neurotic and the muse gets blocked up. Made me go AHA! But how can a complete panster be this way? Aren't compulsive people supposed to be orderly? (Looking at my house and its lack of order would make one wonder...) But complusativity isn't necessarily 0rderly. People can be compulsive about hand washing (guilty) compulsive about vacuuming (again, guilty) their nail polish never being chipped and always color coordinated to their clothing (my best friend) anyway. How do I break this cycle? Should I even try since it's such a deep-seated issue? The answers to those questions are I don't know. So far this has worked to my advantage. But recently it has been my undoing. A novel that I'm supposed to be completing has stalled out. Why? Because I know where it ends, and I've reached that point. But it's missing about 150 pages for the proper word count and try as I might I CAN'T get it to move forward. So what can be done in this type of situation? If anyone has the answer PLEASE tell me!

Well now my secret is out, guess I'll end here until tomorrow!

Happy Reading!

Huggles,
Donica