In re: your fic troubles: Have you ever considered just getting a blank piece of paper/document/whatever and letting him tell whatever piece of the story he wants, regardless of if you think it's right/valid/part of the story? Works for me usually.

That's fairly similar to how the entire opening chapter goes, actually. He keeps wanting to tangent off and I'm all "dude, we have to at least TRY to stick with the prompt here"..
Thank you. I may let him have his tangents and see if I can work 'em in elsewhere or into something else.. sometime when I don't have a deadline...

Have at it.