All These Words in Random Places

Once again, I find myself contemplating my "serial writing" practice... or, rather, my lack of a practice.

I have often said-- and I suppose it has become a personal philosophy of sorts-- that the secret to becoming and being a writer is simply "to write." And that's not really a secret, or is it any kind of magic potion... "it" all begins with us sitting down and churning out words.

What I mean by that is that a lot of people talk and plan and think about doing what they want to be doing but fail to actually DO any of the doing of what they are planning, thinking and talking about doing.

A few years ago, I decided to combat my own laziness and general lack of motivation by taking at least minimal (but often more) notes every time I had an idea or thought that seemed "writing worthy." I don't know that it has served to increase the volume of my writing by a whole lot-- I still struggle to complete articles on a regular basis-- but at least it has kept me in a more creative frame of mind.

And I have built an impressive collection of hand written notes...

Of course, it happened again today... where a comment left on a Facebook post got extended into a short blog post about writing, which in turn got transmuted into a different-- and much longer-- blog post about my struggle with ADHD.

I look at my reams of tiny scribbled pieces of paper, and can only hope that some day they might turn themselves into something... meanwhile, I will continue to place "random words" in random places...

Keeping Notes of Ideas

I have long been "scribbling notes" every time I get an idea, and I am not somewhere where I can act on that idea in the moment.

Come to think of it, 95% of my ideas for writing come at moments when I am nowhere near the computer-- so I always carry scraps of paper and a pen or pencil with me, wherever I go. When something "comes up," I pause for a moment and scribble... and then go back to what I was doing.

All the notes end up on my desk, and then get sorted "by topic" into a box... eventually.

The "problem" with this kind of system is that I never seem to find the time to actually sit down and make the number of notes in the box diminish.

On the upside, I do manage to sort things out from time to time... and I often discover that (over a period of years) the same basic ideas come up, over and over. And that's a good sign that I should probably take the time to develop them further.

On the downside, a lot of ideas come up "in the heat of the moment," and I end up sitting at my desk, contemplating what I was actually thinking, when I wrote the note in the first place. WHY did I think that was such a great idea? No idea...

I guess it's just part and parcel of being a frustrated writer that I never have time enough to sit down and develop my ideas when they come up. I easily have enough material for three articles (or more) per DAY... but I don't have the time to do anything with them. "Time," of course, is a nebulous concept... the truth is that I don't have the money to take the day of (every day!) to develop my ideas...