When I first started writ­ing seri­ously, I kept a lit­tle text file on my desk­top where I would rapidly jot down ideas for the premises of sto­ries. Eventually, this turned into a note­book that I tried and failed to carry around. Then it turned into a col­lec­tion of ran­dom doc­u­ments on Google Docs. It’s cur­rent incar­na­tion is a folder on my EverNote account.

With ever­note, I can record voice notes, type ideas in on the com­puter or my phone, include pho­tos, and more. Pretty much any­thing I want to remem­ber and have acces­si­ble from any­where, I throw into Evernote these days, and that includes story ideas.

But I wanted to talk about the impor­tance of cap­tur­ing more than just the premise for sto­ries. I’ve started try­ing to cap­ture any kind of fas­ci­nat­ing tid­bit that I think might be use­ful at some point. When I see a per­son with a trait that I think would make an inter­est­ing con­cept for a char­ac­ter, I put it in. Collect every­thing, because I am find­ing that when inspi­ra­tion is run­ning a lit­tle low, these notes can be the ker­nel of cre­ative energy I need to steam­roll through a project.

I also carry around a flexible-cover Moleskine note­book, and I do jot down story ideas in here, but I also use that for web­site thumb­nail sketches, doo­dles, and more. Because I do all my writ­ing on a com­puter, it works very well for me to have this cen­tral, search­able tool for my ran­dom bits of ideas.

Somtimes, writ­ing a story is like play­ing Katamari Damacy. You just keep rolling the sticky ball of your brain around until it accu­mu­lates enough junk to let you go to the next level.

Tagged as: advice, My Writing, SF