Reasons why a novel, memoir, or longer work may never be “FORTHCOMING!” from me: whenever I begin to write I get absorbed in the activity of writing. I seem unable (after all these years) to force myself to craft characters or plots or descriptions… The characters are LANGUAGE, the plot is made by LANGUAGE, and the LANGUAGE only seeks to inscribe itself…
Polysemic Stupor 
Outline ?
Personally, I would not be so interested in inventing characters or a plot. Writing fiction is just not my thing and I also prefer reading (and writng) essays and things like that.
Stanislaw Lem, in a TV talk show, once remarked that there are two types of books, those containing feelings and those containing ideas. I am more on the ideas side.
Maybe its similar with you?
Surely seems to be – but I do feel my passion lies in the communicative properties of language, & DO believe narratives perform significant roles of health for our embodiment/enmindedness…
Those are fun, but then I tend toward the map like fascination of their design & form
When I write, all I have is language – no plot, barely any grammar to pull things together. I initially begin with the metaphor that inspired me to write a particular piece, then punch it and stretch it – like a recalcitrant piece of clay – into something that is recognizable, readable and acceptable.
that sounds quite similar to my process – though often it’s simply an inchoate “feeling” I search after using language, and then the language begins mating and accruing toward what often seem its own ends… thanks for sharing!