Since I have become "forcibly retired" from the I/T field to other "normal" jobs I have much more free time on my hands. I started a journal with fountain pen just before this happened and discovered that I enjoy writing very much. I've gone through about a journal a month just on my own ideas and thoughts. But oddly only for my own ideas and thoughts and experiences.

What has happened now though is that I can find no way to take the story ideas that appear full-blown in my mind and put them down on paper - or in this case iBook. ;-)

The situation is thus:

1) I get an idea.

2) This idea sparks a story in my head and before you know it I have a mental outline of the story from beginning to end. Just a general flow, no names or places or anything else.

3) Before I can put this flow down on paper, in fact most often AS I put the flow down on paper, it changes completely and I stop putting it down very early on because now-everything's-a-jumble-and-I-have-no-clear-path-and-have-even-lost-the-mental-outline.

See my problem. The story is gone before I even get a chance to write it down. I could probably, if I overcame some foot-in-mouth stumbling, tell this in storyteller format verbally. But that doesn't get it down on paper. (I'm not sure voice-recognition software would be able to keep up with me.)

I'd dearly love to get some of the mental stories down on paper but they all just seem to be fading mist when I reach for them. :-(

Kimheb