Today I wrote

A small celebration of that small fact: today I wrote. Before dawn, with coffee (no need to be barbaric, after all), a few hundred words. Some of them might even have been the right ones. Some of them might even have been in the right place.

But it is, as it always has been and probably always will be, a testing. An experiment, an exploration. Like I've said, you can't improve something that's not there, so I start with an imperfect draft and revise later. Later!

And the strange thing is, I can barely remember anything of what I wrote this morning. Something about a pipe, I think. Oh, and bells, I was looking for different ways to describe the ringing of bells. Hey, it's coming back to me: sunrise and shadows and a cold church.

That's enough, though. I want to not remember it. I want it to stay separate from the awake-me who doubts and edits. And if I can only resist dipping back into the draft to tinker "just for a minute," I might be able to keep that little glowing coal of a story idea alive just a little longer, till I can sit down again with my coffee and sleepy eyes, and tuck back into the story.