It starts as a trickle,
a murmur.
Words burble and bubble in my brain.
Half sentences
Incoherent phrases.
Then a character leaps out of the stream,
arcing in the sunlight.
The meandering story begins to flow,
gaining strength
rushing forward over the rocky plot.
Setting and motivation,
dialog and point of view
all come together, splashing into a waterfall,
pulling me down further and further,
until I'm twirling and turning and sucked
into the whirlpool of the story.