How many great ideas have you forgotten?
I've been plugging away at the novel, and a few times I've gotten up out of bed to scribble some notes lest I forget. (The physical act of writing ideas down helps me remember more than the actual note I produce. "Kinesthetic learner," someone told me.) But by and large I don't bother. Even if I forget on an explicit, verbalized, conscious level, the idea tends to pop up as I write and I go, "Oh yeah, that."
Granted, this may be because I am writing regularly, and I'm hip deep in novel revision, but even when I'm not, I don't take many notes. I always have notepad and paper with me, but more often to write down book titles I should look up, or names of songs, or websites. (Or to record complete poems/stanzas that I think up while waiting for a bus.) I have this notion that if my "great" idea is really worthwhile, I'll find it again, and again, if need be.
Likewise, I don't worry about running out of ideas.
I realize this "faith" runs contrary to a lot of writing advice out there, and I just wondered how many of my fellow writers really do the whole "carry around a notebook" thing to capture their fleeting inspirations.
Do you?
I've been plugging away at the novel, and a few times I've gotten up out of bed to scribble some notes lest I forget. (The physical act of writing ideas down helps me remember more than the actual note I produce. "Kinesthetic learner," someone told me.) But by and large I don't bother. Even if I forget on an explicit, verbalized, conscious level, the idea tends to pop up as I write and I go, "Oh yeah, that."
Granted, this may be because I am writing regularly, and I'm hip deep in novel revision, but even when I'm not, I don't take many notes. I always have notepad and paper with me, but more often to write down book titles I should look up, or names of songs, or websites. (Or to record complete poems/stanzas that I think up while waiting for a bus.) I have this notion that if my "great" idea is really worthwhile, I'll find it again, and again, if need be.
Likewise, I don't worry about running out of ideas.
I realize this "faith" runs contrary to a lot of writing advice out there, and I just wondered how many of my fellow writers really do the whole "carry around a notebook" thing to capture their fleeting inspirations.
Do you?
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