I need a place to record all of my story ideas and I think I may have come up with a solution. At first blush, this blog seems like the obvious place, but I’m not ready to regurgitate all of my raw thoughts in such a public place yet. Although by recording this post, regurgitating raw thoughts is exactly what I am about to do. Perhaps this will be the trickle needed to break through the dam of resistance I have felt against using the blog to store my thoughts.
The intended purpose of this post is to come up with a way to file my raw stories into some organized pattern in which I can easily connect my thoughts. It is sort of like brain storming an idea to come up with a solution. Okay, so I ‘m brain storming with myself. But feel free to jump in anytime you want to. All help is greatly appreciated. I promise I will not scoff at you, after all a successful brain storming session accepts all thoughts.
What do I do with all of these ideas I have flooding my head? They need to be numbered so I can keep track of them. They need to be numbered so I can keep them together because I have this habit of just writing things down no matter where I am and I write them down on whatever material I find available. I once had a story idea so compelling while shopping in a department store that I went to the office supply aisle, grabbed a pen and some paper and began writing right there. When I got to the check out the cashier looked at me funny and felt I had to explain that it was stuff I was afraid of forgetting. She chuckled and said I’m not the only one that happens to. She then told me of one guy who grabbed a box of cereal to write on and had to buy it even though he didn’t like that brand. Okay, so I’m not that unusual. One point goes for keeping me somewhat in touch with the rest of the world.
So, how to keep track of these things, I find I don’t really keep up on indexing so that won’t work. Do I really need to date these ideas, I don’t think so. I can give them working titles but I don’t always remember those, which is why I at one time used the indexing idea. Numbering, I guess. Maybe the number format could involve the date, something like mmddyy-sequence #. The sequence could be for that day only or for the entire life of my ability to come up with story ideas. I have so damned many I will never get them written. I have an office file box full of partially written story ideas sitting in the garage. Maybe I should go through those. I feel excitement building up within me at the thought of a new project to start. As if I don’t already have so many to chose from.
Geez, look at all the text I just wrote simply trying to figure out how to keep track of story ideas. Is this pitiful or what. Something will come to me, but right now I need to start writing these ideas down. A plan, I need a plan. The first phase is to empty my spiral notebook that I take everywhere now. There is a website called 750words that I have been using for three months now to record my free form thoughts every day and I love using it. But I quickly outgrew that for several reasons. One involves the time of day I wake up. 3 am comes awfully early for a lot of people. For me it has become routine. Only occasionally am I blessed with a couple extra hours of sleep, but all in all it is rare. Anyway, being up at that time of day and getting on the computer to write could be a bit disturbing to my wife, even though she seems to be able to sleep through a bomb blast. Nah, that’s not even been tested and I guess I don’t really believe that, but she is a sound sleeper. Even so, my typing could possibly disturb her so just suffice it to say that I choose not to get on the computer until after she awakens. Bless her heart for being able to sleep the generally accepted requirement of eight hours a day. I get by perfectly fine on five and a couple cups of coffee.
I go to the living room, three rooms away, where I won’t disturb her and set up my temporary office consisting of a pen and spiral writing pad, a couple pencils and a spiral drawing pad, several of the books I am currently reading and since these days it is so freakin’ cold I wrap up in a thick warm blanket. I write, I draw, and I read. I write when the mood strikes, and as I have previously stated, it strikes a lot, and then later I go to the 750words website and record into that. Cheating, I don’t think so because what I enter is actually free-form and free-flowing thoughts as is intended on the site. I just use it because it gets me in the habit of writing on a daily basis. Oh, I failed to mention one aspect that keeps me coming back to the website. Each day I am logged on I am told how long my writing streak is. Currently I am on a 48 day streak. I found that being told this, at first , kept me coming back. Now, it doesn’t mean as much. The magic of that small bit of information has gotten me into the habit of writing daily and I appreciate that.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, That spiral notebook I use for writing is close to fifteen pages ahead of my daily target of writing 750 words. It has gotten way too far ahead of my ability to sit at my computer long enough to record all that I have written. After all, I do have other things going on in my life, blasphemy to some I know, but gardening, cooking, drawing, etc are not things I wish to give up.
Hence, the need for a system to record all of my story ideas. I choose to use Microsoft word, well because it is on my computer. It is an old version but it is workable. I can back up everything onto Dropbox so that as long as I have computer access I will be able to record, copy and paste into this blog or anywhere else I choose. Keeping them organized remains my biggest concern now.
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