Be The Heroine In Your Own Story

In  my novel my main character Caitlin is on a mission. She is searching for her father, the father she thought was dead. It involves a long quest across strange lands with many new trials. In the current scene I am writing she has been captured by yet another group of brigands who seem bent on preventing her from reaching her goal.

When I think about this story I can't help but think of my own dreams. They are like taking a long journey or like a quest in a fantasy novel. If you were to think of your dream as a fantasy novel, what stage would you be at. I asked myself these questions.
Have I just left my home?
Has the bad guy shown up yet?
Do I make foolish mistakes?
Do I get frustrated the first time something goes wrong.
Do I have the guts and drive of a warrior to keep going?
What do I do when all hope seems lost?

I can relate to all these questions to my own creative journey. The parallels are interesting. I have often heard that we are the heroine in our own stories. I like the sound of that. When I get the most frustrated I need to remind myself I am the heroine, and the heroine does not give up.  She dusts off her bow or her sword and she tackles those getting in her way again and again.  I have long believed that creativity is a process, a series of steps. You just don't sit down and create a masterpiece the first time out.

If the heroine of my story reached her goal in the first fifty pages, what fun would that be. We want to be able to see her struggle, to gain insight by those struggles and for her to persevere in the end. Its the same way with our own creative projects. We learn so much in the process. If I didn't struggle to make a piece of art, it would be flat and lifeless. It's in the whole process where we lay out our emotions out in the paint that adds the layer and depth to paintings that we love. Where would Van Gogh's work be without the angst of his life. The more I think about this the more I realize both art and writing teach us in the same way. We can be the heroine in our own stories.

If you were look at your creative dream as if it were a fantasy novel, what part of the story are you in right now?