I've reached a point with storytelling that's sort of like the best part of being a jazz improvisor. It's not just listening/hearing the last line, and saying "hey, where do I go now?"

That's the first part, the instinctual madness beneath that drives everything else. Trusting the words, loving the words the phrases and the way they knit together.

The second part is where I say, usually when I sit down to yesterday's work, and go "Hey, I'm not sure that's what I wanted to happen."

I've seen DWSmith say that he'd happily toss a few thousand words, whatever, and go back and start writing from the cut point. The urge is the same, the recognition of the way the mind sort of wandered off into space and the fingers followed along after.

I'm only occasionally up to that. I can see the path not taken; I'm enjoying saying to myself, "Ok, fine, the thing twisted. What are you going to do about it?" In other words, ok now it's a challenge. How do I take where the story went, regardless of what I might have thought about it, and take off from there. A writer's prompt, in other words, writ large and in charge. Here's the current, boyo, jump in and swim.

That's the other part of jazz, not just what's you've played that's led you here, but what the band is playing, the currents, the chords hidden away and driving you to... Where? The choice is always there, can you wrest it free and play along? It's always the conversation.