Have you ever?

Hey folks

Have you ever had almost perfect inspiration to write something but then found you were lacking in the language to write it? I'm not talking about translational or vocabulary problems I mean have you ever found yourself with a great idea but you cannot seem to find the words that do it justice?

I just have. I was going to write a fragment for Ed today but for some reason I could not get comfortable with anything I wrote.
I have a theory as to why this is. Normally I like to keep Eds life fairly distant from my own, sure he may have some very similar anecdotes to me personally and he may be in the same industry but that is where it ends. Today I was going to write something that happened to me and translate that for Ed, but I think I had trouble with this because I was emotionally attached to the story.

Has anyone got any experiences that are similar? Or am I going mad?

I can understand. Maybe you think your words aren't telling the truth about that moment... It's more like, as you lived that moment, you know it's not the same. If you were imagining it, your words would create the thing, and then the words match the situation, because they actually created it... (Am I clear...?)

Or maybe you don't want to tell this story after all. Sometimes I end up not showing up something I wrote because really it was revealing too much and then the words weren't looking right either.

I think you are correct in saying that it is easier to write about something that is imaginary rather than write about something that I have actually lived. "Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life." As Robert Louis Stevenson said.

I also agree with you about not wanting people to know about this small episode of my life. I am very proud of it and would never even think to hesitate (Now that makes very little literary sense.) in doing it again but I have to admit that I'm not sure I want people to know about it. I wanted to mask it in fiction but perhaps even that is too close to the bone.

Sometimes I don't tell things I lived in the way they actually happened. I use the idea but a bit differently. I don't know if you can apply it to your story... But then it won't be too close to your own experience.

And I don't ever tell things that happened to me because anyway Amélie isn't me... So there are few chances that she lives an experience the exact same way. There are always differences, even if she happens to be in situations I've been in. You see what I mean?

So maybe it doesn't sound right because the idea for now is more you than Ed...?

(I'm desperatly trying to finish a fragment myself and I can't get to it, but I don't know why at all... Usually it's because the idea isn't good. But this fragment leads to some others that I've already written, so I had the inspiration for those... Therefore it's not logical I can't write the starting point)