In Which I do Terrible Things...

Hey ya'll, first terrible think I have done is not updating this blog for a month. Oy, sorry about that! The last month of school got to be super crazy. Probably the most insane end of year I've had in eight years of teaching. It was generally nutso. So, that coupled with my little sister's graduation from high school, and the hubs buying a car, made for a particularly busy May. But, trust me, you weren't the only ones getting ignored. :)

At any rate, I'm officially on summer vacation now and thoroughly excited. It already feels like I won't be able to fit it all in, but I'm sure going to try.

So, without further ado, the second terrible thing that I've done, recently that is. I was mean to one of my characters. I know, after all that build up it sounds a little lame, but dang ya'll it was super hard. My first novel was much more autobiographical, so things that went bad in it, had actually gone bad at some point, so it wasn't hard to deal with. This new book though... it is super hard to be mean to my characters. I know that it makes for a better novel; heck just look at Harry Potter. What doesn't go wrong for that poor kid? So what did I do to my poor character? It wasn't even really that bad. She doesn't stand up for herself and a guy starts a terrible rumor about it. See? Not that bad. Now I feel super lame for even thinking it was hard, but honestly it was. Which brings up an interesting point.

When I write I always think that I want this perfect world where everything is sunshine and kittens eating ice cream. Cute right? But that's not what I read, and that's certainly not what other people read, so why am I compelled to write it? Do I get some kind of God-complex where I feel if I'm going to create a world it had better be nice? I'm not entirely sure, but serious conflict is always hard for me.

Does anyone else have this problem? Or are you all meaner than I am? :) How to you create conflict in your writing?