After midnight, we're gonna let it all hang out..

Some people say I'm a decent writer. They're wrong. I'm not even a good writer. I took all the classes in high school and college, blazed through them at the top of my class, wrote papers so stunning the professors assured me I had a future in writing. I learned well, but what I learned is that I would hate being a writer. The papers I churned out meant nothing to me. They were meticulously arranged bits of verbage strung together along a writers' formulae in the manner I thought would assure me the best grade. They worked spectacularly, for what they were, but in the end, they failed completely. The words on the page had no meaning outside a dictionary. The stories they told were controlled, concise, and completely devoid of any warmth or personality. Creative Writing - what an oxymoron. It took me years of internet slumming to beat myself out of what I'd been taught.

I'm not a writer, although I write almost constantly. I don't aim to be a good writer; I hope to be a good storyteller.

I can tell stories well. I can even write them down in a manner that accurately transcribes the story in my head into words other people can use to imagine the original image. When presented with an entire story to tell, I become obsessive until I've gotten it written down. The problem is, I'm never done with them. I'm constantly editing or changing points of the plot to bend the story to my will. I like a happy ending, you see, but so few happy endings show up unforced. Mostly they're mediocre endings. Someday, I'll finish one to my satisfaction. That's the lie I tell myself when staring at a file folder chock full of works-in-progress.

The trouble comes when I'm not presented with an entire story or plot for one; when I'm confronted with a single image or scene that would make an awesome story, if I could only figure out how it begins and ends. I have no patience. I want to write out the scene, and not bother with the plot building up to it. I can't see that part of the story in my head, so it comes out as a flat, two dimensional placeholder. I can't write if I'm not inspired, and I'm never inspired by the boring transitional pieces. Sometimes, with the stories, I'll cheat and write them as screenplays if I don't have enough images to make it a proper story. Sometimes, I don't have enough for even that. I'll have one image, one scene, burning holes in my mind and clamoring for attention. If I'm feeling particularly masochistic, I'll write them up as a text file and save it, knowing full well that it will sit in the folder until I've forgotten everything about it. That story will stagnate - out of mind, out of sight, until I grow curious about the text file and reopen it, subsequently cursing myself because I will lack the memory of any vestigal plot threads it ever might have had.

That's where I am tonight. I have an image in my head, and it's leaving me twisting in the wind. It wants to become a plague story. There's maybe enough there to turn it into a short story, if I can think of a beginning. I have the crux, I have the crisis, I have the resolution, and I even have an ending, albeit not a happy one. I don't have a beginning.

I'll be up all night, mentally gnawing at this. Although sometime the image imps throw me a bone.. in writing this blurb out, I thought of the first two lines of the story, where it should begin. How, rather. Where is relative.

Sometimes, the night - she smiles.
-Peregrine