Makes sense, but sometimes seeds of ideas can grow over time. I felt like all I needed was to get a Chapter 1 down. What bothers me is how good of an idea it seemed like at the time...(famous last words haha)
I've forgotten some ideas and then have them come back to me later. When that happens, I know the idea has potential. I don't know if I have the potential to write it though So if your idea really was good, it should come back home to ya.
I think the brain can sometimes play tricks on you and make you think you just had an idea you've now forgotten. Sorta like a writer's deja vu. "It's there...oh, now it slipped." Probably not much of an idea to begin with. More like a brain fart. Another thing is to have a whole scene play out in your head, with fluent dialogue and great drama, appearing like a movie while you're staring out the window. This is where a post-it pad and a pen comes in handy. Sometimes its hard to remember all the details even 5 seconds after it happened in your head, but you can train this ability. I try to grab keywords from the dialogue and keyframes from the events to serve as anchorpoints for when I jot it all down on my post-it. Still gotta do it fast, though - while the idea is still unfiltered from conscious editing. If you've got nothing to write on at the moment (happens to me in the shower too often), then you'll just have to repeat it to yourself over and over and over until it sticks. Maybe say it out loud. Hearing yourself speak it makes it easier to remember.
Y'all, I have paper and a pen 'right beside my bed' as I get some of my best ideas in bed. In 'bed', in my 'station wagon', paper and pen in the 'kitchen' too, in case an idea comes to me, and it helps with keeping track of groceries. It helps to 'speak out loud', to 'say out loud' an idea, if you are without paper and pen. Much easier, to remember 'a sound' it is than a 'fleeting thought'! Being a musician, I do it all the time: "Self, remember such and such" It works! Thank you...♪ J. Winters von Knife
Ideas are the nectar of the Gods and you have a responsibility to catch everyone that comes your way. Often they only appear once and sometimes just for a fleeting moment. I carry a small tape recorder with me everywhere I go. Currently on my computer I have over 100 story ideas, certainly over a couple of hundred character sketches just waiting for the opportunity to materialise as a person and probably in excess of a thousand lines of dialogue looking for the character and opening to fall into place within a screenplay. Writers don’t just create when they are in front of their computer, they observe, note, record and improvise at every chance the Gods give them.
As soon as im hit by an idea, everything im doing gets put on hold and I start writing out the idea, then after ive done it I go back to were I was. I also make sure there is always a pen and paper in the car (Some of my best ideas happen while driving) and I plan on getting one of those asus laptops as my current laptop is too big to carry around.
Please tell me you aren't jotting down ideas while you are driving! Get yourself a digital voice recorder, at least. Smaller than a cell phone, choose one that you can start and stop without looking. Many can be transcribed directly into a computer with voice recognition software through a USB connection.
Wow, this is clearly the most responsive category of the forums! So, I came up with an idea of keeping a blank canvas open on photoshop, so that when I come up with scenes in my head I can use my PC tablet to draw them out. Kind of like a storyboard. If I can manage to print thumbnails or something I can stick them on a cork board or something. A year ago I tried using OneNote to keep track of ideas, starting new pages for each idea, etc. Kind of got confusing, and since I'm not in the habit of opening OneNote things never tended to happen. But now if I hit the windows key+'N' a little OneNote sticky comes up. That's pretty cool, but I'M ALREADY AT THE COMPUTER, you know? I could just open word!
I use my Notepad on my iPod Touch. Ideas have a way of treating my like teflon. If I don't make them stick, they don't.
Ok here is a trick for such a situation. It happened once to me as well. If you have an idea or situtaion or any sort in your brain at any time, just relate it over to some object ( code for your brain). For example once I was going to catch a metro train, I got an idea. At that time I was going down the stairs. I coded it as stairs. Later it helped me. It stayed as such in me. Later if you want to retrieve that idea, you may get that straight, or atleast you can give a try with the code to retrieve it. Good luck.
During the day i write and find that i get little done but once it hits 3am and onwards i can write for ages without stopping. just wondering if anyone else was like this and if there is a particular reason
1. Fewer distractions; and 2. Your "inner critic" is probably one of the first bits of your brain to go to sleep.
^LOL, I find I write so much better at night too. I don't know why exactly, but I think it's because my brain goes into a semi-conscious state where it's still able to communicate to my body what functions to perform. But that's as far as it goes. The analytical part of my brain that edits as I write goes to sleep.
you are not the only one, my friend. i spend a large chunk of my early morning creating and writing. and as a result my sleeping patterns have changed dramaticly, dont let this happen to you. Belive me, it sucks.
This explains a lot of my insane ideas written in my head in the wee hours of the morning that seem so insane when I wake up fully. Good thing I am away from my keyboard or I might have some stuff that'd get me committed. xD
Each of us is not one mind. There are two hemispheres to our brain (plus a brain stem) that operate somewhat on their own. If separated, the two hemispheres are, indeed, capable of completely autonomous thought. Within each hemisphere, different regions have different jobs. This is how we argue with ourselves whether or not to eat another helping of chocolate cake. And ... we have two brains operating in parallel with each other - our grey matter and our white matter. One operates quickly via charged ions zipping between cells. The other is slower, with hormones and neurotransmitters creeping between cells. When these two come into conflict we have the situations where we make the "right" choice quickly, then have a gradual building of "no no no no no". In the small hours, some of these minds are quiet (there's no chocolate cake to argue over), while others are still going strong. -Frank
which hemisphere is telling to eat the cake.....and why does it always win? seriously though, brilliant answer frank, love learning new stuff like this.
I think it's a matter of what else is occupying your mind at the time, as well as your environment. I often do a lot of my writing after midnight because everyone else is asleep (or, if my son is not asleep, he is engrossed in video games or 'net surfing) and so there are few distractions. But then if I keep at it too long, fatigue takes over and the quality of my writing suffers. I've usually done my best writing when I take days off for that purpose - the house is empty, there's nothing on my to-do list, I'm sharp and I can really plow into it. I also think age may have something to do with all of this. As I get older, all-nighters don't accomplish as much as they used to.
I would be inclined to suspect that you write better at these times because you are more relaxed as your brain waves slow from beta to alpha waves, which triggers an increase in your melatonin levels. You are in an awake daydream state. In sound sleep (Theta), melatonin increases the occurrence of dreams, so it is logical that melatonin would also have an affect on awake daydream states of mind perhaps even increasing creative thought. Google: Brain waves, Alpha Brain Waves, Melatonin
