Ten Ways to Capture Ideas
It makes me crazy when I have a great idea and then forget it. So here’s my list of favorite ways to make sure the ideas are still around when I’m ready to use them.
In the car
1. Record it on a digital voice recorder. I like my Olympus WS-300M (an old model).
2. Capture it using the record function hiding in iPod touch or iPhone utilities.
3. Leave yourself a (hands-free) voicemail message. (Just don’t get all excited when you see it later.)
While cooking
4. Set your digital voice recorder on the voice-activated setting so when your hands are coated with chicken slime, you don’t even have to hit the “record” button.
5. Keep a stash of broken crayons in a jar so you can grab one even if your hands are wet or dirty and scribble an idea on a paper towel.
In the shower
6. As previously mentioned, the bath crayon is a cheap and convenient way to get your whole family involved in plotting and outlining.
7. With full credit to Delia Moran for the inspiration, use a Rite-in-the-Rain spiral-bound notebook and all-weather pen.
On a run
8. Use the (free) Dragon Dication app for iPhone or iPod touch, then email text to yourself.
9. Send a text to your email account.
In bed
10. Direct message yourself from whatever mobile device you Tweet from.
Romance-writer bonus idea-capture idea #11:
Write it with your tongue on your bedmate. S/he will still remember in the morning.
October 5, 2011 @ 12:40 pm
Excellent suggestions! I really need to get myself another digital voice recorder… right now I just carry around a writer’s notebook which is great and helpful… except for when I can’t use my hands. And those bath crayons sound like fun! Of course, I’d probably just end up doodling all over the shower.
And, for the record, that last suggestion made me giggle 😉
October 5, 2011 @ 1:25 pm
Thanks, Ana! (BTW, Ana is the name of the heroine in my first MS :-)) Truth is, I probably capture 80% of my ideas in a notebook, too (love the 5-pack of 4 x 6″ side-spiral-bound notebooks that Staples sells! big enough not to cramp, but small enough to fit in pretty much any purse). But last night, I realized that I wanted to add something to this blog post (details about where to find the Dragon Dictate app), and I DM’d myself from bed. Worked like a charm (Except for that brief frisson of excitement when I woke up this morning and saw that I had a DM! Oh. Right. From myself. That’s the one hazard of emailing/texting/DMing/voicemailing one’s self …).
October 5, 2011 @ 4:20 pm
Either I have a good memory or I’m unusually willing to let the less-wonderful ideas slide right off the surface of my brain, because I have no idea-remembering devices. I’ll open up a Scrivener file when I have a new concept for a WIP and jot down my thoughts, scene ideas, etc., but that’s it. I guess I keep them in my head? These sound like great approaches, though. A poet friend used to compose in his car with a digital recorder. He had a long daily commute.