One of the most pervasive lies we tell ourselves as writers is: “I’ll remember that great idea”.
Good luck with that, buddy!
We’re all guilty of it, and hands up, I’m the worst.
I know - JUST KNOW - that the idea I had at 3am two weeks ago last Thursday was Booker prize-winning.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember any of it.
We’ve all been there. You’re struck by a brilliant thought. Maybe it’s a line of dialogue, a plot twist, or a compelling character trait.
You think it’s too good to forget, so you continue with your day (or night), only to find, hours later, that the idea has dissolved into thin air.
The truth is, our minds are far too cluttered to rely on memory alone.
Life is loud and full of distractions, responsibilities and other ideas competing for space. Even if it’s the perfect phrase or the solution to a plot hole, the mind tends to file it away in some inaccessible corner, often never to be found again.
So I implore you to write it down.
Be your own best friend and capture the idea on your phone, in a notebook, whiteboard, an envelope, or in lipstick on the bathroom mirror, anywhere. Hell, write it using the pasta noodles you’re eating with your carbonara tonight.
You will not remember it otherwise.
I now have scraps of words scribbled on the back of receipts that say things like ‘The Cold War but on Saturn’, or ‘Sarah’s sky monkey pancake’. None of which mean anything.
It’s similar to when you put an idea into ChatGPT and the result is a word salad of insane gibberish - as demonstrated by the above image - but even that is better than nothing.
And sometimes - hallelujah! - those scrappy ideas are good.
And they stick.
So capture your random word nuggets in all their glory, in any way you can.
Feel free to share sorry tales of lost plot lines, or successful manuscripts borne out of words hastily scribbled on the back of your hand.
Lisa