More snow. It started earlier as a type of snowy drizzle, then became more intense, a proto-snowstorm. All the variations in snowfall are fascinating, something that really doesn't exist in Texas, or at least not on a perceptible scale, since it almost never snows there.

Last night I had another series of bizarre dreams. I didn't write them down when I woke up, so they've flitted back into the void, and only their ghostly echo remains, a gauzy play of shadows, a fretwork of evanescent emotions. Sometimes I wonder if dreams are the true lifenode, connecting the body with Something Other.

Uncertain

How to get the thoughts to burgeon fluid and unfettered, malleable, undistilled. The most daunting task really is to daily face that empty screen, with the heavy weight of all those who have come before, and the weight of all those paving the way now, so that at every turn my resolve flags. The temptation every day to turn to other endeavors, and resign myself to the fact that I don't have the gift--that preternatural essence--the rare genius, the mental fortitude. These and sundry other discouragements cause such despair, and is only vanquished by the antidote of long reading. It's all-consuming, this passion. I wonder if it will destroy me one day. Do I fling it away? But it always reappears, and when I go a day without reading, without drawing out these images onto paper, the misery is all the more unbearable. The writer has the biggest playground, the largest Lego collection, but the strain, the burden of pushing for greatness, might be too much. Still, the reward is immeasurable and ineffable, like the prophet struck dumb by the vision. Each story is a discovery, for the writer most of all, who feels the most awe, the most horror, the most joy. All there is to do is write, and hope that the writing will be my fuel and my salvation.