Working things out in my head

I am, first and foremost, a writer. I think like a writer, stink like a writer, drink like a writer and live like a writer. Writing is all I know how to do well, and everything else goes to the wayside: bills, relationships, friendships. None of that matters compared to the writing.

I like working things out in my head; letting a story wander well past where it began until it's logical ending. Then I put pen to paper. It's more like transcribing what I've mulled around on for days at a time. There are days now where I don't even touch paper, it's just all in my head. I can't explain it any better than that. I wish I could.

The writer in me wished to be more wordy for this particular snippet of lines strung together, but I couldn't find the words in me to do it. Sometimes that happens, the words just aren't there. I'll be in the middle of a sentence when writing a story out and BAM! A shot in the dark and everything goes black. It's as if the story never happened.

There are stories I've written over and over again that just never see the light of day. I call these my orphan children, those sad souls who just can't seem to find the right fit in life and are destined to have something built on their backs. I can't bear to look at those pages anymore because they make me cry.

I have problems finishing works, feeling like things are complete. Sometimes I just let my children go out into the world, no editing at all, and they are what they are. But they always feel incomplete, as if I only scratched the surface of the story in my mind's eye. As if there are a million more stories to be told from that first one.

That's the one thing I dislike the most about being a writer: I never feel like I've done enough. But all I can do is write.