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Aug. 20th, 2001 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreWhat is it about my creative mind that it always makes sure that I get fantastic ideas when I'm away from any means of recording them?
Last night, in the middle of a busy period at work, an entire article popped right into my head, as fully formed as Athena. By the time things had calmed down a bit, it was nothing but ashes. I've tried taking quick notes, but most of the time those turn out to be too cryptic for me to figure out what I meant by them. My style is to sit down and write. Full-bore, Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead writing.
Which works great until I'm actually sitting in front of an empty screen. Then my ideas are scarcer than pork chops in a kosher deli. I've even tried using one of those hand held recorders. Alas, I can't speak much faster than I type. So that was a wash.
Speaking of washing, an example. While writing Ground Forces, I had to come up with a number of sidebars. These make up about a third of the final word count, and can be expansions on main text, additional information, or flavor text.
I was in the shower when one suddenly hit me. I swear to God it jumped into my head in its final form. I leapt from the shower, shouting for Kirsten to log off and start Word. I then proceeded to type faster than I ever had before, getting this all down in one go.
For those of you interested, it is the "Gunbarrel Diplomacy" sidebar on page 19 of GURPS Traveller: Ground Forces. Pretty much exactly the way I wrote it while naked and dripping wet.
What I need is to be able to train my brain to respond to the command "we are going to write now." and curb its inclination towards wild bursts of genius at inappropriate moments
Last night, in the middle of a busy period at work, an entire article popped right into my head, as fully formed as Athena. By the time things had calmed down a bit, it was nothing but ashes. I've tried taking quick notes, but most of the time those turn out to be too cryptic for me to figure out what I meant by them. My style is to sit down and write. Full-bore, Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead writing.
Which works great until I'm actually sitting in front of an empty screen. Then my ideas are scarcer than pork chops in a kosher deli. I've even tried using one of those hand held recorders. Alas, I can't speak much faster than I type. So that was a wash.
Speaking of washing, an example. While writing Ground Forces, I had to come up with a number of sidebars. These make up about a third of the final word count, and can be expansions on main text, additional information, or flavor text.
I was in the shower when one suddenly hit me. I swear to God it jumped into my head in its final form. I leapt from the shower, shouting for Kirsten to log off and start Word. I then proceeded to type faster than I ever had before, getting this all down in one go.
For those of you interested, it is the "Gunbarrel Diplomacy" sidebar on page 19 of GURPS Traveller: Ground Forces. Pretty much exactly the way I wrote it while naked and dripping wet.
What I need is to be able to train my brain to respond to the command "we are going to write now." and curb its inclination towards wild bursts of genius at inappropriate moments
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Have you tried taking your muse out on regular dates? Maybe sie feels sie isn't getting enough attention, and therefore always calls at inopportune moments.... You may have to do a fair amount of work to hir schedule before sie's appeased, though.
Learning what memory-joggers work for you can be so important. If you get a story idea about a guy whose dog keeps digging holes under the fence, what will bring it back to you: "suburban trauma" or "dog fence hole" or "neighbor wars" or "Dealing With A Digger" or...? If you can figure that out, that can make it a lot easier to jot down notes that will be useful later. Good luck with it.