Write It Down!

If I don't write down a thought - or an image or a line of poetry - the instant it comes to mind, it vanishes, which explains why I have pens and notebooks in my pants and coat pockets, the car, the bicycle basket, on one or two desks in every room including bathrooms and the kitchen.
— Floyd Skloot

Early Saturday afternoon I had a great idea for the title of today’s blog post, but by the time I got around to working on it I couldn’t remember what it was. It was like three words long and I couldn’t remember a single one.

It just reinforces the idea that you should keep a notebook and pen beside you at all times to write stuff down in. No matter how good you think your memory is, it’s never good enough.

The really sad part is, I was sitting in the living room when I had this brilliant idea, and I had easy access to both pens and papers, and I didn’t use any of them. It was such a short, simple idea that I figured I could easily remember it when I opened my laptop to work on my post, only I got distracted and by the time I sat down at my lap top I only vaguely remembered I even had an idea.

Honestly, with me it’s not enough to have notebooks and pens all over the house, I have to actually use them. How many brilliant ideas have been lost because I didn’t take the time to write them down?

It happens most often with blog posts. I have a bad habit of “writing” them in my head – I think about them, work out the details, and then when it comes time to sit down and physically write them my brain is an empty void of despair.

I think the worst are dreams. Dreams are such a great source of ideas, but you have to get into the habit of writing them down as soon as you wake up or they’re gone forever. Sometimes it’s like getting an idea in the shower. You just have to keep repeating it in your head until you can get to some writing materials.

I can still recall one dream I had where I was explaining to my father this idea I had for a story. It was such a good idea that when I woke up I didn’t bother writing it down. To this day I can remember my father telling me what a great idea it was for a book, but I can’t remember the idea itself.

I read an article once that said while it’s good to think about ideas and talk about them, the process of writing them down is what really lets you develop them. Once an idea is written down you can step back and look at it objectively, see ways you could develop it that weren’t obvious when it was just stuck in your head. Or you might see that it wasn’t such a great idea after all.

But you’ll never know . . . until you write it down.

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Wordage Report

New Words:

Driving Into Forever (rewrite) – 1,815
Blog Posts – 1,062+496+711+1,253=3,522
Total = 5,337

DIF words were down, but I did all my blog posts so those words were up. Unfortunately, the overall total of words was down.

Editing:

TraxTime tells me I spent 7 hours and 47 minutes editing Blood Ties last week – about an hour less than the week before.

What I’m Reading:

I’ve gone from one extreme to the other with my reading. I wasn’t as close to the end of Cordina’s Crown Jewel, by Nora Roberts as I thought, and other than finishing it, I read no other tree books.

As for e-books, I finished Janaya, book two of Alien Shenanigans by Shelley Munro and have started book three, Captured & Seduced. I’m enjoying these so much I’m even sneaking in a little e-book time when I’m not on the bike.

Goals

Once again I met all my goals last week. You’d almost think I need some more challenging goals. Almost. ;-)

I had a couple of really good days editing Blood Ties, but then I got all caught up in getting those last couple of bins of kitchen stuff emptied. But the kitchen is pretty much done now, so I won't be able to use that as an excuse anymore.

It’s a good thing I like Driving Into Forever so much, otherwise I’d give up. Which would be a real shame considering I have the sequel already written. And no, I couldn’t have the sequel as a stand alone because it uses secondary characters from the first one.

This Week’s Goals

1. Keep up the good work editing
2. Work harder on Driving Into Forever
3. Keep limiting my reading time.
4. Switch up some of my gaming time to crafting instead.

Sounds like a plan to me!