The voices never seem to stop chattering, or at least it feels that way most times. As a person who lives in his own head, it can get pretty loud up there. The conversations I have to and from work are brilliant and captivating. The conversations I have in real life, well…, aren’t.

I also play out scenes in my head. The characters usually are faceless, but I typically see them playing out like a Hollywood movie. There tends to be a lot of dialogue, and very little to no action, just a lot of talking from imaginary people who seem to be well-spoken. I, however, am not.

I can see and hear the scenes I want to write. I imagine them going on at the most inopportune times, when I am not near a computer. Everything seems to flow smoothly, with well-reasoned arguments, logical progressions, and a clear order. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Then I sit and try to write out the brilliant scenes that I imagined and it’s gone. There’s no spontaneity. The conversations seem stilted and dry, the arguments lack conviction, and I can’t seem to muddle my way through the labyrinth to find the end I had originally intended. It frustrates me, I’m not afraid to tell you.

When it happens, I begin the suspect that the brilliant conversation I’m having in my head isn’t really brilliant. Maybe it only seems that way hidden in my secret world. Maybe my fantasy is to be able to be a good speaker, to be concise and articulate, and I create a fiction where I can be, whether it’s me talking, or one of my characters.

In the real world, what I think is so articulate really isn’t. Then I begin to suspect my own intelligence. Perhaps I’m just too fearful or guarded with my thoughts and words that I’m unable to let them go. I wonder if other writers know what I’m talking about. I doubt I’m alone, or at least I hope I’m not.

This fear also defines who I am in life. The older I get, the more negative I become, in part due to the voices I hear. Too many things have gone wrong in my life that all I imagine for myself is one tragedy after another.

At the moment, a co-worker is pushing me to ask out a sales-rep who visits our store once a week. Though I find her attractive, and she seems friendly enough, but despite my co-workers assertions that she finds me attractive, all the scenarios I run in my head turn out badly.

Every single one.

Maybe that’s what I should write about, the tragedy I imagine for myself in life, love, and everything else. I’m sure the scenarios playing out in the deep recesses of my psyche are far-fetched and ridiculous. Too bad I have trouble writing out what I imagine and rarely do my thoughts justice.

You know what I think? I think my voices are jerks. I need new voices.