Shane& Alyssa

Throw yourself into your work. Become the very best version of your self. Do all the right things and succeed in life. Be the person you always wanted to be. And once you've accomplished all the things you wanted to accomplish, then you can focus on things like want a girl in your life. Because nothing else matters besides your career and success.

This is what I want the basis of my story with Shane and Alyssa to focus on. I want Shane to think that she wasn't good enough for Alyssa back in high school. So she joins the Army and focuses on nothing but that. And she becomes quite successful. But she's still unhappy and she still can not do more than just a night with a girl. Besides Carmen. Carmen is the only girl she seeks out to have sex with but she can never stick around the next day nor ask or accept anything besides sex.

Now all I need to figure out is - not what fuels Shane's decisions - because that's Alyssa. But what fuels her strengths. Why doe she have the psyche that she has. Is it because of her mom dying so young? Is it the abuse at the hands of her dad?

Okay. Nevermind. I already know this. Its her past as a whole. Her dad abusing her. Her brothers alienating her. Her mom's death. Running away. Finding a place to call home and then losing her and blaming herself. And taking out that guilt on her friendships/ relationships to people - especially Jamie. And then finding someone like Alyssa who makes all the pain and shame and guilt and evil inside of her world go away. And then losing her. And losing herself because of it.

Now she's trying to rebuild herself and her life while trying to let go of and forget about Alyssa. Its not until she sees Alyssa again that she realizes that once again she's been running away from her life, while at the same time trying to become a person that Alyssa could love. Even though, she kind of gave up on that on the surface. Deep down she hasn't but she doesn't know that?

Ugh. Shane is so complicated but I love her to death. She is the only character that I have put all of my effort into creating. I've put more of myself in her character than anyone else.

It's fucking Alyssa who I haven't put enough effort into. I need to dig down deep and figure out what makes her who she is. Her brothers and her father and her nephew. But what about them? What did her brother do? What about her father leaving affected her so much? What about her connection to her nephew makes things so special? And what about Jamie? Why is her connection with Jamie so special?