Each  time....with the need to write, I can’t start by
sitting. Ideas want to  take me places. They have legs, and
so must I. Pacing and prowling…my hallway, the park, or a
dimmed bar smelling of sawdust, Chanel, and  sweat. 
A bag of angry weasels are in my brain. They cry, scratch,
bite and hiss.
“Let us out, please.”
“Forget them, let me out!”
“I want to run”
….”to fly”
“To fight, explore, expose. To reclaim”
A mad cacophony of disembodied pleadings complete with
lives, loves, and goals. Each, in short, with a story to
tell.
Enough! 
I sit down, hands poised over the keys.
Around  me, I feel the press of their outlines pushing
against my reality with  the desire to just be. I am god to
them. But I have no desire to bless, to test, or to control.
I only want to set them free and let them go  where they
wish. 
Perhaps that makes me more gate than god. Here I sit,
wielding the power release them, while bearing no
responsibility for their actions. If they bring wind or
rain, emulation or emancipation, or they begin pastoring or
pillaging;  all is one to me...I just let them out. 
Power without consequence is dangerous, but so are they.
Characters can be dangerous, and stories can trap you. 
But I can’t hold them back any longer.....fighting against
editing, against  constraint, against even further
definition. Like me, they don’t have to be understood in
order to exist.
Understanding  is for agents, approval ratings, and
accolades. Precision of language is for the editors who
write the synopsis of book jackets, and for professors
publishing for tenure.
Let my stories be loud and messy. Just let them be. Let me
throw the gates open and not care what happens. Let music
play while satyr’s cavort, piping perfectly irreverent
impromptu, as I dance with them…hedonistic, angry, and 
free.
I begin typing, and the dam bursts….
Potential  becomes kinetic - a story’s natural state. The
figures pressing around  me break free, pouring through me
to dampen our world with the constant  mists of their
crashing spray. Here I sit, feeling like Annie Taylor at 
Niagara (or maybe Frodo Baggins, famous barrel-rider),
caught in the  flow, hoping I won’t be crushed. 
It was wonderful. At first.
Ideas rolled out of me, and I felt lighter. I saw them as
they passed through and then away from me. There were
monsters, but also beauty. There was truth crashing along
like mythical horses, pulling a cart filled with boxes of
hate, and bigotry, and fear. I wondered at this, then
realized it was right; what raving lunatic doesn’t believe
themselves to be enacting a Truth? That realization startled
me the worst, and the outpouring chilled me.
Behind this came tenderness. Characters dropped into being
showing empathy, pathos, Eros, and catharsis. The weasels
feel out of my brain, onto a world they  covered with blood,
flowers, drugs, money and dreams. They plotted and  planned,
undertaking adventure -- winning goals or suffering defeats.
There was laughter, bubbling up into satire, razor wit, and
bawdy farce.  On and on it flowed -- characters and ideas
born and dying. Flowing on, too much and too fast.
“Stop!”, I tried to yell. 
“Stop, or at least slow down. The world needs you, you
were born for this. All of you were let out for this purpose
-- to be seen, to exist. To be  known……”
Ideas and characters, big or small, hero or villain; they
did not hear or did not care. 
I  was more gate than god, and once the doors were open I
was not responsible. There was no thought of control. A
force is a force.
A tsunami is powerful, but you can’t examine a drop of
water surrounded by a flood.
Over the edge, my barrel crashing, I plunged into a pool,
and emerged on the safety of a shore. All gone, floating
away on their own power, living their own stories. I imagine
they might pass you at some point. You might see a dragon
with a baseball bat, a villainous hamster who only wishes to
ice-dance, or a princess who’s saved herself but unsure 
where she’s left her sword. They were all here, I think -
pressing against me and hissing like weasels in my brain to
be let out...to  exist.
Overhead, there is a rainbow.  Drops of water, caught in the
air long enough to refract light and project a story of
their own. I consider understanding, and how it is
communicated. Whether for agents, approval ratings,
accolades, or  audiences…..how do we explain the flood
that is contained in each drop of water? 
From inside the rushing torrent there is no perspective, so
how can there be a simile? What is the metaphor for
everything?
I can not explain being caught in a tsunami. But maybe I can
trap drops in the air. Maybe I can refract, and project new
colors. Maybe a story is a rainbow.