Had one of those conversations today that just didn't go anywhere. Too much of a divide to bridge, in terms of where everyone started.

Personally, it was worth it, simply because I had to keep coming back to think about where I'd gone off track, and keep from turning muleheaded. Admittedly, for me this isn't a far trip.

The real thing, after the dust settled and everyone agreed to disagree, was that something else occurred to me; that's the part of me-as-writer that asks, "Now what did you learn, what did you hear, what did you see? What did you observe?"

Ultimately, it'll come out somewhere somewhen, in a story. Probably in several stories, because I'll gnaw at it, and all the other little things I've seen/heard/done/observed in moving through this thing called life. Put them together take them apart, in order out of order and in as many different ways as I can.

Not to solve anything, or to not solve anything. Rather to build and think, and most of all tell new stories from new points of view as best I can.

The real reason no particular story, at least from my point of view, can capture a writer's point of view. Because if the writer's really working at it, really thinking and engaging, that point of view is formless and void and ever-changing, always reworked. At least for some things, if not all.