I most likely did. My early writings were primarily based on real experiences, but once you get the grind on editing you learn to transform those experiences into your character's.
The fact it took 12 years for me to complete "Knights of the Alliance" proves I have severe Writer's Block. It always helps to take breaks. Before I became a 'writer' I was taking 2-3 year breaks, but once I was set on making the Alliance series happen, those breaks were on average 2-3 weeks. I was staring at a rough draft of Book 2 for about a week with nearly nothing written. When I came back to it, I added 30k words to it in 5 days and the ideas came to me like a snap. It works!
This is undoubtedly one of my biggest challenges because I don't always understand how men think, especially when it comes to aggression and obsessions over violence! None of my characters resemble someone I know in real life so I rely on internal and eternal conflicts to put myself in their shoes.
