Next Tuesday is the closing date for my Wisconsin house. The closing is in the morning and then we start the long drive with four people, three vehicles, two trailers, two rabbits, one dog, a dozen house plants, and our essential belongings through most of the Eastern US until we reach North Carolina.
This means that it will literally be impossible for me to blog next week on Tuesday.
Sorry in advance, guys. Thanks for understanding.
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With that established, let's get down to business today.
A few weeks ago my cell phone contract came up for renewal. I went to the cell phone store, waited almost three hours, paid out an entire pay check worth of funds, and finally left with a new phone. This upgrade was a massive switch for me. I was going from an Android Razar to the iPhone 5S.
It took me awhile to get used to the new graphics, the new home screen, and, of course, Safari. Heck, let's face it, I'm still not very comfortable with where everything is located, but I'm getting better at using it on a daily basis.
The other day, I turned on my old Droid to sort through the thousands of Notes I stored on it. Because switching my old pictures onto my iPhone was easy, but Notes was a whole 'nother story. I started at the top, wading through vegan smoothie recipes concocted during three a.m. moments of clarity, ideas for new paintings, cool character names I read or heard, hundreds of notes on novels and stories in progress. full poems written during lunch breaks, pointless rants I wrote when I needed to vent about that rude customer or this horrible boss, and lists of old grocery needs. However, the most important notes I found were titled simply "STORY IDEA". There were three. I expected to type them into a Word Document on my laptop and file them away for a later time when I needed a break from a novel revision or couldn't get a new story idea brainstormed. The first two I transferred over with no problem. One was an interesting exchange of dialogue I overheard while making someone's pizza that had blossomed into a possible literary story. The other was a link to a scientific study on genes and a possible sci-fi story idea.
But the third made me stop. It was a mere five word sentence - probably a news story I had heard while walking past a newscast on TV. It was so short, that, had I written it out on a piece of paper, I probably would have thrown it away thinking it was nothing.
What the note contained was so inspirational, I abandoned my Droid transfer and started writing a story around that idea.
The moral of this anecdote is that I had completely forgotten about the original event that sparked the STORY IDEA note. I had completely forgotten that a story idea like that had ever crossed my mind. If it weren't for that five word sentence, I would never have written the story I'm currently working on.
So, while I'm moving cross-country, I want you to start a Notes file on your own cell phone (or, if you're more old school, feel free to keep a pad of paper and pen in your bag) - just make sure you have something with you so that, when you walk past the TODAY show story in the hospital lobby and hear a weird tidbit about a remote county in Ohio, or your overhear a strange conversation between two women also waiting for their lattes, you can write it down. You don't have to have a story idea right at that moment. Just write down anything that makes you really listen or take notice. Document and forget.
Then, when you come back to it weeks, months, or years later, it will effect you. Because it will be the right time for your note to spark an idea. It will be the push you need to start something new or to take up your old writing hobby.
Notice everything.
Write it down.
Keep it safe.
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