The laws of buggery
This post is for all writers that have had a feckin’ amazing idea, only to completely forget it again seconds later. For all writers that have drifted off to sleep concocting a beautiful idea only to have woken up drooling with no recollection of their bestselling premise. For all writers that have scrambled around the house ‘Memento’ style, searching high and low for a notebook and a pen, only to find one and say “hang on, what did I want this for again?”
Basically, this post is for ALL writers.
An idea pops into your head.
If it’s a mediocre thought then you might dismiss it. But maybe, just maybe, you’ll try and run with it. See if you can turn it into a masterpiece, or at least a ‘brain masterpiece’.
You see, as most writers know, a mediocre idea in your mind will seem pretty crap when/if you manage to get it down on paper. This might be because you can’t properly articulate your idea (bad writer, naughty naughty novelist); or it may be because the idea just can’t be written down as good as it plays out in your head (be careful not to blur this excuse with bad writer, naughty novelist); or it may just be the laws of buggery screwing you over once again.
And that’s just for mediocre ideas!
When you get a great idea, an idea so mind-blowingly (blowingly?) genius that it spews forth from your cranium like an excited drug obsessed monkey who’s just found his next fix, it can be just as hard to get it down on paper.
Whatever the idea it seems important to get something concrete, something tangible written on paper. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be paper. I’ve manically scribbled ideas down on desks, fridges, skin (my own), bus tickets, food wrappers, and once on a wall in my house waiting to be wallpapered.
“Man, I wish this dude would hurry up and wallpaper me. Its bloody cold in here and the cheapskate won’t put the heating on…..ooh ooh here he is now and he looks determined! Maybe he’s finally going to paper me…oh yeah paper me bitch, that’s how I like it…hang on, that’s a pencil not a roll of superfresco…AGGH! What are you doing to me!? My beautiful plasterwork ruined, I never wanted a tattoo you bastard and why are you grinning while you write, I can’t see it from here, gerrof you crazy…”
*ahem* Sorry, the idea struck and I had to get it down.
Anyway, my point is, how many times has this happened to you? You’ve ‘lost’ an idea because you can’t or haven’t written it down, put pen to paper and articulated the flash of inspiration. It happens to all of us, some more than others, but it doesn’t have to be a problem.
If it doesn’t happen to you that much then great, you might ‘miss out’ on a few ideas but you get most of them down, and I bet you end up remembering the missing bits eventually.
For those of us it happens to ALL the time, take solace in the fact that if it happens that much you must have ideas coming out of the wazoo! It probably happens to me at least twice a day, but I try not to let it concern me too much. If I actually wrote down all the ideas and flashes that popped into my head I wouldn’t have time to write actual stories…or eat, or poop, or sleep.
Don’t worry about it, you know you’re a great writer and you know you can always come up with new ideas. You just have to have faith; that the ideas you ‘forgot’ are still up their somewhere (brainwise, not floating around in the sky). They form from your experiences, or from thin air, whichever you believe – but either way they come from inside you and that means they’re still inside waiting to be found again.
So write what you like, write what you need to write, and hopefully when the time arises that you need a really good piece of dialogue or a amazing description for a new setting, the flash that you once ‘forgot’ will pop back into the forefront of your mind and save your ass.
How do you know the new ideas you keep getting aren't the old ones you forgot?
I've also had the flip side of this where I've tortured myself in the past after forgetting the 'Big Idea'. It's kept me awake at night, sweating with every tip of the tongue, edge of the mind near reconnection of it.
Then one night, it's always while your're sleeping, I've woken with it there in bright neon at the front of my brain. The one that got away has stupidly sneaked into my mind while it thought I was sleeping. As you know writers don't sleep, they just close their eyes and think of new ideas and worry about the old ones not being good enough.
Then what a horrible moment when you realise that lusted after missing idea, the big one, the germ of a best seller was in fact awful. No worse than awful, unoriginal. So I don't mind if the go.
They say, or at least Sting did, if you love somebody set them free. Do the same with ideas. If they are good enough they come back and if they come back dressed as bad ideas send them packing and get some sleep. When you wake up do remember to buy a note book for each room though.
Know it well. Lost two lovely phrases recently (didn't write them immediately). Great post.
Well, I suppose if you’ve never used the ideas then they are technically new? Unless you had an idea twenty years ago about a dream world hiding the real world, created by robots that we made, and a bunch of pesky rebels trying to free their minds. In that case it would probably be best to drop the new/remembered idea…
I do occasionally find old notes that job my memory of old forgotten ideas, and it’s a great feeling when I realise I can dust them off and use them as if they were new. They’re only old in my eyes, or my minds eye? And yes, more often than not I recollect an idea and come to the dreaded realisation that it’s a steaming pile of donkey poo. But sometimes I can salvage a character, or a line of dialogue. Just something slightly useful, so it’s not a complete loss.
Also, I need to get “writers don't sleep” on a t-shirt 😀
Cheers, Fiona. Hopefully you'll remember the two phrases, or at least come up with something just as good 🙂
The laws of buggery. LOL. Only you could think of a title like that!
A great post. I think all writers have those moments where we tell ourselves we'll remember the idea later and don't. Bugger!
Sometimes we're in a place where we can't write it down but I usually try. I've been very good about writing down ideas for my blog posts.
This sounds all to familiar…
* all TOO familiar, even!!
You've just given me an idea. Wait – need to find a pen. Ah, got one. Damn thing doesn't work. Pencil will have to do. Right, what was it again? Oh, god…