What's your writing problem?

This is idea number two, and one hour into writing this piece.

The first things I wanted to write about were creation and destruction, but as is often the case with this kind of thing, it got waaay too convoluted and stopped making sense.

It was crap, and I tossed it.

So, here we are.  I felt inspired and wanted to write a piece tonight, and once again ran out of fuel and enthusiasm. 

So, have a short story made up on the spot.

She woke up with a terrible headache.

...Wow.  You know, it's a bit disturbing how many of my stories start out with something like that.  I mean, in media-res, with a female character.  It's just what my mind defaults to, apparently.

Some of you know this, but for the rest of you who don't, I once created a character for a game my friends and I were going to play that had a background that was about ten pages long.  For a professional writer, I'm sure this is probably not particularly ridiculous; but considering that not only was this character only vaguely important to the plot, but also not likely to show up for more than two sessions at the most, this was the definition of overkill.  I started out writing a little chunk meant to introduce her (yep, her), and ended up writing well into the night.  Since I jumped back and forth between quick description and in-depth profile, and more than often dipped into narrative, it was pretty terrible.  Exhausted as I was, it was also completely unedited.

She's also almost, but not quite, the biggest Mary Sue character I've ever created.  (For an in depth description of what a lot of people on the Internet think a Mary Sue is, click here or here; for the moment, just rest assured that making one in a story is a very, very bad thing.)  It wasn't on purpose; it's just what ended up happening.  Thanks for putting up with that, Max.

Every single damn time I create a female character (which is a lot), she  pops into my head, and I go on a spree of furious rewrites and character examinations.  The result often turns out to be a character with too many flaws, who gets scrapped anyway.

Anybody else have this problem, or something like it?  Some problem that just cuts to the core of what you're writing, and makes you just instantly rethink the viability appeal of the entirety of everything you've just written?

I mean, I don't mind it.  It certainly means a lot less shitty work, or at least I'd like to think so, and I tend to be quite satisfied with the characters I create, gaming or otherwise.  There are common patterns and tendencies (tragedy and wandering, anybody?), but I still love them.  Without stopping for more than a minute, I could write a decent story involving literally any single or group of them right here, right now.

That's how much I like them.

In fact, "She woke up with a terrible headache" is a pretty decent descriptor of most of them.  Just switch 'she' for 'he' in some cases, and you get the whole travel-worn, tragic lot.  Repentance, you see, is a fascinating concept to me.

But yeah, anybody else have a common problem they find with what they write?  Even if it's more about grammar or spelling than plot?  I love talking about that kind of thing.

I won't leave you hanging either.  Have an actual chunk of a story I've been drafting lately.

"Black Out."  (Detective version)

I could tell it was coming, the moment her eyes went dark.  See, a lot can be told about a person from their eyes.  The lines and wrinkles around them; the shine and liveliness of them, and how healthy they are; the way they move when one lies, or cries, or smiles.  To a lesser extent, even the color and shape of a person's eyes can give you insight into what kind of person they are.  Learning to read a person's eyes correctly, particularly the most subtle nuances of motion, can take several years to master.  Some people, particularly those who know their own ticks and how to read them, can manipulate this eye-borne transference to their own ends. 

Sometimes, however, a person's eyes might as well be screaming at you.  I'm no coward, but the look in her eyes was something I had never seen before.  When her eyes darkened, mine went wide; for her eyes, once so kind and honest, now radiated malice unimaginable.  In this place, in the middle of nowhere, there was no chance of the authorities making it in time.  I do not know what he said to her, or what problems she had been dealing with to bring her to this place.  All I know is that, even as her hand moved to the knife on the table in front of her, I was had already begun running for the door.   This knowledge, gleaned from years of experience in criminal psychology, was the only thing that saved my life. 

The first chapter of this story is more or less already done, and I'd be happy to send it to you if what you read above has peaked your interest.  Or link it if you have a Deviant Art account.