Ideas...

I had an idea for a short story. It came to me in the middle of the night. I rolled it around in my head for awhile and thought, yeah, this is a good one. 

I didn't write it down.

I used to keep a pad by my bed and would write down those ideas. But too many mornings of being excited to start on my next brilliant story to be met with a note that said something like "Strawberries don't roll because of their noses" and I realized that most middle of the night ideas only make sense in the context of being semiconscious.

But sometimes you do get a good one. A really good one. A this is going to be brilliant good one. 

Those I repeat to myself a few times to lock them in, then write them down in the morning.

Sometimes it even works. 

And sometimes I have mornings like this one where I know the idea was good. I can feel that it was good. And I can ALMOST remember it.

It's like it's hiding around the corner.

I keep getting fleeting glimpses and almost remembering it. Like I see the shadow of it running away from me while I chase it. 

So I've stopped chasing it. 

I wrote a new section of the story I was writing all last year. I reread it all yesterday trying to figure out where the wheels came off. And I found that I had written a piece setting up the place I am right now and had just forgotten. I mean I wrote it back in June last year so it's not that big of a shock that I had forgotten, but it did make me feel better that I really did sort of have a plan.

So I wrote a new section. It's still clunky but I think it's just going to be clunky. I have to get past it to move forward and sometimes in stories there are clunky parts. 

Fiction and nonfiction.

So right now on my computer are two sections labeled NotChapter18 and NotChapter19 as I rework them into Chapter18 and Chapter19. 

Wouldn't that be great to be able to do in real life? Figure out that something was the wrong direction and back up to rework it? But keep the ones that you think aren't working, just incase those were the right ones after all. 

Of course, I've written those short stories as well. I really do like the idea of a do over and then exploring what all of the horrific ramifications of that would be.

I'm pretty sure that wasn't the idea from last night. I'm pretty sure it was something new that I haven't taken a few different angles at. 

Maybe. 

Just that shadow tail there right now. 

Hopefully it will come back out later and I will have a chance to write down a few notes. And hopefully those notes will make sense when I get around to writing the story. 

Because...honestly... it's not just the middle of the night where I end up with notes like strawberries don't roll because of their noses. Sometimes the middle of the day notes are just as cryptic and just as weird.

I told Dana the other day that I sometimes think Brent has learned how to forge my writing and is leaving these random "story ideas" just to amuse himself. 

Which would be amusing. 

But much more something I would do than he would.

Hmm...maybe I should learn how to write like Brent. 

That would be a good story.