No, Dear Reader, I haven't lost it. Know why? Because I jot it down! Yes, today we'll focus on the art of taking and keeping notes. Sounds boring? Not in an author's life.
Just about every author I know keeps a little notebook somewhere handy wherever s/he goes. I certainly do and pull it out of my handbag or pocket more than I thought I would.
It's funny about nuggets of notions or tiny smoke swirls wafting around one's mind. Many times they deliver flashes of clarity, and an idea is born. As simple and complex as that.
When such a phenomenon occurs, you have to be ready to write, or the idea or nugget can evaporate back into the smoke and be gone forever.
An illustration you ask? Okay, here's one: As I splashed along through the surf on Clearwater Beach early one morning, my thoughts were of a pelican. It was the pelican I was using in the book I was writing, One Pelican at a Time.
I knew the pelican had to be different, recognizable from all others, because Bella and Britt, the heroines in the story, needed to know him immediately on sight. Out of the smoke swirl came a pelican with a crooked beak. An aha moment. It had to be jotted down or could be gone forever.
Now granted, that's a simple illustration, but one nonetheless. So many ideas come to an author, s/he has to be ready at a pen's click to put it to paper (or iPad, iPhone, etc.).
Jotting had become a way of life for me in a way I never thought it would. Now that it's a part of my DNA, well, it's part of my DNA!
Try jotting. You'll find it organizational at worst and inspirational at best!
Just about every author I know keeps a little notebook somewhere handy wherever s/he goes. I certainly do and pull it out of my handbag or pocket more than I thought I would.It's funny about nuggets of notions or tiny smoke swirls wafting around one's mind. Many times they deliver flashes of clarity, and an idea is born. As simple and complex as that.
When such a phenomenon occurs, you have to be ready to write, or the idea or nugget can evaporate back into the smoke and be gone forever.
An illustration you ask? Okay, here's one: As I splashed along through the surf on Clearwater Beach early one morning, my thoughts were of a pelican. It was the pelican I was using in the book I was writing, One Pelican at a Time. I knew the pelican had to be different, recognizable from all others, because Bella and Britt, the heroines in the story, needed to know him immediately on sight. Out of the smoke swirl came a pelican with a crooked beak. An aha moment. It had to be jotted down or could be gone forever.
Now granted, that's a simple illustration, but one nonetheless. So many ideas come to an author, s/he has to be ready at a pen's click to put it to paper (or iPad, iPhone, etc.).
Jotting had become a way of life for me in a way I never thought it would. Now that it's a part of my DNA, well, it's part of my DNA!Try jotting. You'll find it organizational at worst and inspirational at best!
