Why Can't I...

I dream in vivid color and detail. I can see things, smell things, feel things. I can carry on wonderful conversations, and I can read anything. I dream asleep and dream awake. My brain is never still,always whirling with ideas and conversations and plots.

Write! I must write!

Full scenes, every word, every action, every small nuance is in my head, as large and clear as a movie theater screen. It flows and swirls, faster and faster.

No, he wouldn't say that, but she would respond like this!

I carry books in my head, characters banging about, shouting, whispering, demanding, cajoling to have their story told. Pages and pages, myths and realities, loves and hates. Fairies and soldiers, stay at home moms and grave diggers, corporate theives and the immortal. I am never alone.

It's snowing in this world...the lush green heat of the South...the closeness of a still night .

I sit with a pad of paper and a pen, or in front of my computer, fingertips tingling and brain buzzing and...

Nothing

Between my brain and my fingers there is a wall of 10 foot thick concrete! Why can't I write? I can hear the groans in my head, the sounds of hands and heads beating against this wall--all in vain.

Let us out! You know us! You can do it, just LET US OUT!

I sit there for a few more minutes, trying to grab a sentence, a plot, a feeling, staring at the crisp white blank page, or that damn cursor, just blinking at me, mocking me...

Not today folks...I'm so sorry...

Why can't I...