I’m driving.
I don’t mean story ideas, really. I mean actual phrases, entire sentences, scraps of dialogue. Maybe it’s the boredom of the road, and being alone during my commute.
Anyway, I have no way of recording these things since I’m, umm, you know, driving. I’ve heard of at least one writer who makes audio recordings of her voice while driving, but I don’t see myself doing this, ever. It would be too distracting, I feel. So I just make a mental note to remember, and in the end I remember making the mental note, but forget the acutal words. I shudder to think how much good material has been wasted like this.
So what about you? When do your best ideas come to you?
Hello! I’m new on wordpress and I’ve found your blog under the tag ‘creative writing’.
My case is similar. Ideas come to me when I’m doing other things, usually stuff that doesn’t need a lot of intense concentration, e.g. mopping the floor. I try to fix them in my mind, and sometimes I succeed in bringing myself to write them down immediately. But I haven’t always been able to retrieve a sentence after I’d said to myself ‘nevermind, I’ll remember it anyway’ and I agree with you, it’s a bit frustrating (then I think, it was probably not that good).
I’d recommend you to try to imagine the whole situation for the sentence, or a character saying it, it think it would be easier to remember that way.
Cheers!
Driving works for me too, and yes, same problem; you get an awesome scrap of dialogue but by the time you get in front of the page, it’s gone, or morphed into something incredibly boring and trite. Ah, well!
In that border region between sleep and wakefulness. I’ll usually roll over and scribble something down in my notebook by the bed before trying to go back to sleep. Rinse and repeat a few times every night before I finally drift off.
Often enough, the ideas are great. Sometimes, I read them, shake my head, and wonder what the hell I was thinking.
This is my first visit and like to leave my comments as a token of appreciation of what you have shared with us.
I have issue when driving. What I know is idea come from everywhere and anytime, I received many good ideas after I have read about your post above.
Thanks and have a fruitful day,
hmmm…i would have to say the shower. and i watch helplessly as those brilliant words circle the drain and vanish.
Definitely driving!
And I’m one of those that you mentioned that uses a voice recorder as I putter along, so I don’t forget anything.
I’ve got a 40 minute commute one-way. I’m not about to waste an hour and a half… not if I can help it.
BTW: Sorry I haven’t visited in a while. I’ve been terribly caught up in my writing.