I Just Wanted a Cookie

I am sitting there thinking of a story I want to write. In my head...the Russians have a word for it - Guhor - all is dark. I know, at that sitting-there point, some of the venue of the actions. I know, maybe, one of the characters. In that venue of action and conflict that interests me, an action jumps into my head – say, for instance, writing I Just Wanted a Cookie, I saw forming in the dark an indignant little girl biting the hand of a boy she saw swindle her father - and off I was gone writing the story w/o knowing anything about the characters I was inventing. I could see the characters and yet I couldn’t...as if I was a channel, I put them in action with characteristics I had thought nothing about and it was a ride that obsessed me. I simply HAD to explain her to myself. Rarely have I edited-out such a scene. Such scenes and characters are always full of uninhibited, distinct purpose and life. For the rest of the writing of a given story, clinging to that first scene, gradually, I realize the “vivid” – uh, or don’t. But I “don’t think twice. It’s all right.” Not even all of Bob Dylan sublimates.