That wishy-washy feeling

So, started a new novel, currently titled The Traitor, a couple weeks ago. I was getting fair daily word counts in before vacation, and now need to get back in the groove and start making some steady progress.

Problem is, I've still got this Latin-flavored mood running rampant through my head right now (thanks to Gilbert Roland) and that doesn't jive with the original concept of the novel. Doesn't help either that I keep listening to scores like Horner's The Mask of Zorro, which is perpetuating Old California motifs and not letting me get into the right headspace.

And the bigger problem is that I have this incredible urge to write Cisco Kid fanfic right now. I can't help it! I've finished watching Vol. 2 of the Gilbert Roland Cisco Kid movies (reviews of those later), and I just adore him in this role. His Cisco is cocky and irreverant, and he handles everything that comes his way with easy self-confidence and my writerly brain just screams out to write him a story where that gets taken away. Where his happy little world of tequila and women and saving the day from unworthy villains crashes down around his shoulders. Because I desperately need him in a meatier story, where the villains aren't so eye-rollingly stupid and his sidekick isn't strictly comic relief.

Which, considering my novel starts with my hero's happy little world crashing down around his shoulders (well, duh!), these feelings should be satisfied by working on the new novel.

If I could get back working on it.

And that means getting my brain straightened out. I need to stop sitting at the piano and composing Spanish-flavored melodies. I need to return the Cisco Kid dvd to Netflix and stop watching Gilbert Roland movies and his really fun guest star appearances on Zorro on youtube. And I desperately need to stop hearing my hero's dialog in Gilbert Roland's accent. Or I need to embrace it and start hearing everyone else's lines that way too, LOL! -- there is that option, I guess. Hm.

And I find this current dilemma extremely vexing because it's so unsual for me. The voice of my hero is one of the first things I hear, it's one of the things that drives the creation of a book... and in this novel, despite the planning, despite the solid images in my head -- I can't hear him clearly. And it's driving me crazy. So, I'll just keep writing, cuz I know where the plot's going, and wait for him to find his own voice.

"Hey, little one, stop fighting it, eh?
I'd make a great hero in your novel."