What I need, I have established, is a lovely, steampunky-style machine that fits over the top of my head and displays my thoughts and dreams to a little tv screen off to the side.
Other writers will know what I’m talking about. You’ve got an idea for a scene… You can see it in your head… You can hear the characters voices as they spit out their dialogue… You can picture the look on a character’s face… You can feel how the character feels as they deal with whatever particular torture you’re putting them through this time… And then you sit down to write…and it’s just not there. The images won’t flow from your mind to your hand to the page.
I’ve often thought that many of my stories would make better movies than books because then I could just show everyone what’s happening instead of trying to explain it. It’s one of the great curses of writing, I think, being about to see and feel exactly what you want to convey, yet somehow being unable to convey it.
I have one of these scenes in my head right now. Every morning when I’m on the bus to work and every evening on the bus back to camp this scene is in my head, playing over and over. It’s place in my NaNo story is coming up soon and I fear for its integrity. I can see every detail so clearly in my mind, which generally is my first clue that its going to be a royal pain in the arse to write. Will the scene make it to paper? I’ll certainly be sure to let you know, but in the meantime if anyone wants to commission a streampunky-style mind reader for me I’m definitely willing to pay. 😛
No Page Left Blank 
I wish that wasn’t the case so often. Been in that exact same place many times. It’s like seeing a thanksgiving feast and tasting cardboard. Imagination and what makes it to the page suffer this big disconnect. When this happens to me I fall back on dialogue and let the scene fall into place later.
It’s always troubling. When I have a scene like that, I try to get it down on paper as quickly as possible, even if I’m not there yet. The, I find I can move on and focus on the plot at hand better. Also, once I get to the scene, it’s more likely to be everything I dreamed of.