or, How to Recognize – and Capture – the Ideas that Will Inspire Your Writing (Part 2) - some tips on how to find the good ideas in the background noise.
I love the idea of 'mining your childhood for memories.' What better way to process feelings than with creativity. When I have a Blue Silver moment, I write it in my notes on my phone. But I can definitely be more organized! Great article :)
Yes, notes on a phone works. Usually, I'll email those notes to myself. But it's like that Seinfeld bit about car rental agencies: I know how to *take* the notes. I just don't always *keep* the notes... lol
I'm finding that taking a second to write even a few lines of the scene (and more if possible) helps capture the moment, not just the idea. It gives it more emotional resonance and connects it better to the themes and storyline.
I'm not sure how it will all come together however! But I'll worry about that once I have 80,000 words or so to start stringing together...
"I’ve had the most success when I’ve taken 10 or 20 minutes to write out the scene in my head." I used to do this with "wild abandon." A scene would start in my head, and I'd drop everything and get to my keyboard to hash it out while it was still hot. At some point I lost that urgency and now scenes just bang around in my brain for a few days and then fizzle. The result of that is... well... nothing. This post inspired me to try to re-establish my old habit of getting the words down when they appear, before they have a chance to float away. We'll see how it goes!
lol - I feel you! And I'm certainly not perfect. Just yesterday, I was having a crazy day when my computer decided to overload. I needed to shut it down and restart, so I was madly closing windows. I came across some snippets I'd jotted down - several docs, actually. I was going to just close them all, "knowing" that I'd already copy and pasted them into the novel.
Turns out, one I hadn't...
Luckily, I slowed myself down to double-check before closing them all, so it was saved. But yeah, disaster lurks around every corner... lol
Good luck to you tethering those ideas -- I'm sure it will go well! Glad this post was useful for you.
I love the idea of 'mining your childhood for memories.' What better way to process feelings than with creativity. When I have a Blue Silver moment, I write it in my notes on my phone. But I can definitely be more organized! Great article :)
Thanks Cindy!
Yes, notes on a phone works. Usually, I'll email those notes to myself. But it's like that Seinfeld bit about car rental agencies: I know how to *take* the notes. I just don't always *keep* the notes... lol
I'm finding that taking a second to write even a few lines of the scene (and more if possible) helps capture the moment, not just the idea. It gives it more emotional resonance and connects it better to the themes and storyline.
I'm not sure how it will all come together however! But I'll worry about that once I have 80,000 words or so to start stringing together...
Thanks for chiming in!
"I’ve had the most success when I’ve taken 10 or 20 minutes to write out the scene in my head." I used to do this with "wild abandon." A scene would start in my head, and I'd drop everything and get to my keyboard to hash it out while it was still hot. At some point I lost that urgency and now scenes just bang around in my brain for a few days and then fizzle. The result of that is... well... nothing. This post inspired me to try to re-establish my old habit of getting the words down when they appear, before they have a chance to float away. We'll see how it goes!
lol - I feel you! And I'm certainly not perfect. Just yesterday, I was having a crazy day when my computer decided to overload. I needed to shut it down and restart, so I was madly closing windows. I came across some snippets I'd jotted down - several docs, actually. I was going to just close them all, "knowing" that I'd already copy and pasted them into the novel.
Turns out, one I hadn't...
Luckily, I slowed myself down to double-check before closing them all, so it was saved. But yeah, disaster lurks around every corner... lol
Good luck to you tethering those ideas -- I'm sure it will go well! Glad this post was useful for you.