The Problem of Setting Down What You Have to Say

Do you ever have the feeling that there's something that you need to say, and you have no idea what it is, let along how to go about it? I sometimes feel like there's something or other that's waiting to come out and that there's no way of telling what it will be until it does come out.

I'm waiting again.

I find myself writing things down at odd moments, the beginnings of stories. On the one hand, it's a good thing, because I'm seeing a pattern in the way I'm coming up with ideas for stories. I have a problem with conflict: I start with a sceniario, and I know how the story's supposed to end (supposing I get it that far), but they keep turning into fairy-tale-type surreal dreamlands (And then...and then...). But I haven't had this kind of compulsion to write this way for years, since I gave up writing poetry. Stories, for me, usually start out with an idea, a plan, a conscious decision. But lately they've been starting out with the same kind of compulsion I felt when I was writing poetry: there's something that must be said, I have no idea how to say it, and I have to keep trying until I can find a way to say it, however imperfectly it comes out.

I hope it's a good thing -- but it's always strange to find out that the part of you that "thinks" isn't the part of you in charge, when it comes right down to it.

And this wasn't what I wanted to say at all. I sat down intending to bitch about people who haven't written or updated their blogs lately. (If you were at a wedding lately, it's probably you...)