Enriched by Words

Capturing Good Ideas at Inopportune Times

You are cruising along, your day going more or less as expected, when WHAM!  You are accosted out of the blue.  Not by a criminal or someone you can reach out and throttle, but by your own imagination.

If you want to write, get used to it.

This attack could be a full blown concept for a non-fiction book or a full blown character boldly stepping up to say:  “Hey, how ya doin’?  You’re going to write about me.” It can happen any time and anywhere.

The truly disciplined are probably able to place the thought or character on hold with a few written words and keep on with their day.  I’m not truly disciplined.  Being whacked in the back of the head by a warrior woman named Tameth, I took the first opportunity to run to the bathroom, pen and paper in hand.  Informing this warrior woman that she had exactly three minutes, I scribbled furiously while she dictated.  She then introduced me to another character by the name of Elyse.  Seeing them standing side by side in my mind’s eye, I suddenly understood why Tameth’s story was so interesting.  I cannot imagine two women more complete opposites than these two.  They didn’t even seem to like sharing the same imagination!  When the three minutes were up, I went back to work, chafing for some time alone to get to know these two characters better.

What DO you do when you are struck with the flash but cannot follow it?  How do you capture these images so you can keep them for later?  What if you work in a busy, people-filled environment or in one that requires your utmost concentration?  Can you imagine your convenience store clerk saying “hang on a minute, just let me get this down…”  Or worse, your surgeon pausing over your gall bladder to stare blankly at the wall while he converses in his mind with a new character?  Frightening image, that last one.

I am so glad I’m not on the dating scene any more.  I can imagine a first date dialog that included dashes to the bathroom to sketch out a character or borrowing his napkin to complete my thought.  I was lucky to marry a fellow bibliophile with no interest in writing but a quiet understanding of a nice dinner out consisting of me, him, and my notebook (just in case).

What are some of the ways you can cope with the brainstorm in the midst of the busy work day?  It depends on your work environment.  If you drive a lot, invest in a small tape recorder that you can switch on and talk to while you drive.  If you are the Budweiser delivery man, your buddy riding shotgun is going to look at you funny, but it’s better than pulling that big truck over for some quick note-taking.  Better yet, hand the notebook to your buddy and make him take notes for you!

If you are surrounded by customers demanding your full attention, you might be stuck with the “quick run to the restroom” routine unless you are stationed at a register.  If so, grab a sheet of paper and write a few words whenever you can.  Just make sure the boss doesn’t see it!

Desk jobs or working in a cubicle farm are somewhat easier to manage.  Take notes, slide them under a work file, and keep snitching time to write a few sentences here and there until your next break, when you can flesh out these images and lock them down until evening. (To all you bosses out there, I do apologize.  However, if you are writers, we envy your office doors!)

Ideas can come at the worst times in terms of our ability to capture them.  If you don’t at least write down a few words or a sentence, there’s a fair possibility that the idea will be gone forever or the character will shrug her shoulders and go find a writer with more time.  I’ve had great ideas just upon waking, only to have a phone call from work resign them to the place where unwritten ideas end up.

People have great ideas in all kinds of circumstances.  Can you totally respect the person walking down the street in front of you, scribbling in a small notebook while trying to negotiate the sea of humanity?  At least her ideas will be there later on IF she can read her writing…and doesn’t step in front of a car in the process of capturing them.

By all means, find a way to capture your fleeting images and good ideas.  Do whatever it takes as long as you don’t threaten the job that feeds and houses you.  Jot notes on the back of an invoice, or on your hand, take an early break if you can, but do something to record these things before they slip out of your busy mind and disappear.

My three-minute burst of writing sat on hold for several hours until I could escape to the back office to do some paperwork.  Tameth then had another five minutes to keep talking before I had to put her on hold again.  I would write a word or two between customers, between phone calls and invoices.  By the time I got home, I had two pages of barely legible writing to decipher, but it was enough.  I wrote a sentence, and Tameth appeared… “no, that’s not what I said.  Write this.”  Two hours and 4000 words later, I have the essence of her story locked down so I can come back to it every evening and give her more life.

If you find yourself resenting your “day job,” please remember this.  Your day job not only feeds and houses you and your family, it provides you with a multitude of items to feed your compost pile.  These observances, experiences, sights and sounds settle deep into your mind.  They float back up with ideas, plots, characters, and thoughts.  It is daily experience with other humans, tasks to complete, and things to see and do that becomes the inspiration we are all so fond of.

Would Tameth and Elyse have arrived had I not been experiencing a deep conflict within myself about working a day job while trying to be true to myself and my vision of my dream job?  Probably not.  It took these exact circumstances to birth the two female characters that are, in essence, two sides of me.  I look forward to watching them argue, fight, and eventually trust.

However, I seriously need to work on my idea capture techniques.  When I say the writing was illegible, I am in no way exaggerating.  Brainstorm new ways to lock down your good ideas (and memorable characters) for a quieter hour in which to indulge them.  Keep all the ideas you can get your hands on.  You never know where one captured today might lead you tomorrow.

How do YOU capture ideas at inconvenient times?  Which methods work and how easy is it to come back to them later?  Please share your thoughts.

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