Her name, currently, is Kate. But perhaps I should change it to Kiki Dee.......

 I'm working on a novel at the moment, and I'm stuck on one particular scene, which  I'm struggling to write.  It's a scene which really shouldn't be so difficult.  There are only two characters involved, and I already know exactly what's going to happen to them and it doesn't involve any laser beams, or weird monsters or exotic locations;  there are no complicated plot twists or subtle undercurrents to communicate and it's night time, so it's not even as if there's a lot to see.  I can picture the whole scenario in my head, and I've written the scenes leading up to this one, and there's no tricky research or fact-checking I need to do before I start.    On top of all that, this is just a first draft so I'm not even too bothered, at this stage, about getting the scene exactly right, or making sure it's polished.  I just need to get it on the page.

And yet, I'm struggling.  I don't want to start.  I can't start.  I did everything under the sun last weekend to avoid writing that scene.

The problem is one of the characters. She's in her first year at university, and she's just met Simon, who is in the year above and developed a huge crush on him, in that way that you sometimes do at that age, especially when you meet someone a little bit older than you who seems about a billion years more sophisticated.  They're going to go for a nice romantic walk, and he's brought along a bottle of champagne..... and then he's going to give her the brush-off.   Which will, of course, break her heart.

The ridiculous thing is, I already know she's going to be absolutely fine.   Simon's being a bit of a bastard now, but she'll win him over, and they'll end up going out for a couple of years.  It won't last forever (he'll go off to America in his final year of university, and they'll break up before he goes) but that's something she'll survive too.  They'll stay friends, and even when he marries someone else that friendship will remain intact. And she'll look back on their relationship, and this night in particular, and laugh about how naive she was, and how it was so obvious that he wasn't "the one" and how lucky it is that they didn't end up together.

So it's all going to be fine, really.

Nevertheless,  the idea of sending her out on that walk, full of hope and expectations and nervous excitement when I know full well what's going to happen..........well, I just can't do it to her.  Every time I sit down to write that scene, I feel a bit ill, and flooded with guilt, and I find something less horrible to go and do instead, like cleaning my fridge or putting yet another load of washing on.  I've been trying for about three days now.  And I know I need to get it written.  But I just can't.

It's silly, I know. And I suppose, in a way, it's a good sign.  Isn't it?