Idea Catchers: What’s YOUR method?
Above: cartoon I did for a PiBoIdMo guest post by Michael Sussman.
These days, I use my iPhone to record most of my writing ideas while on the go, either a brief voice recording or a short note. If I still like the idea by the time I get home, I transfer it to my Scrivener notebook idea page, perhaps expanded a little bit. I try to revisit my idea page regularly and once a week, I take the idea I like the most and expand THAT idea even more.
The goal, of course, is to turn some of these ideas into books.
What about the rest of you? How do YOU record your writing ideas?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I wish I was tech savvy enough to iTouch my ideas. But I guess I’m still a cocktail napkin kind of girl. Then every few months or years or so, I transfer my napkin ideas to a spreadsheet log. Some don’t make it to the log and end up immediately in a document. That’s when the text is just smoking in my head and I have to get the whole thing down before my brain catches fire.
That cartoon is a hoot! I need a poster of it!
For me, I do it the old fashioned way: journals and notebooks. I have a fetish for really cute or cool journals. And pencils.
Great cartoon, Deb! Like Christy, I collect my ideas in a journal, either on the computer or in a sketchbook type notebook (I have both). In my notebook, I label the IDEA with big bold letters. It’s easier to find them later when I’m searching for something to write about.
Wow, Debbie, that’s organized! I tend to go with the method that it’s not a good story idea unless it sticks in my brain and won’t go away. Once I realize I’ve been mentally expanding the idea for a few days and in danger of forgetting the details, I write notes in my writer’s journal.
I used to keep a file box for idea index cards, but right now it’s gathering dust on some rather lousy ideas.
I used to write them down in my Moleskin notebook, but never seemed to go back and read any of my old entries. Now I put them in Evernote, where I can retrieve them on my iPhone or a handy computer.
As I adapt my writing process to match my RPG style, Google Wave may become my new repository for grand (and crappy) ideas.