9 June 2010

Plot Bunny Farm - Handling the Ideas

Few hours ago I had an idea for a blog post. I know it was brilliant and it would sweep you of your feet. But I was busy at the time so I didn't immediately started writing.

Now I can't remember what that post was supposed to be about. There's very little chance I will ever get that particular (and no doubt awesome) idea back.

And it's not a problem with blog posts either. Ideas come tome (and to every writer, I imagine) every day, every moment. Sometimes it's like the scene in the "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" when the vampire bunny jumps and rips the poor knight's throat out. That's how I feel with my ideas. As if I'm surrounded by plot bunnies who want to be written nowNowNOW, and don'twant to wait patiently in line.

And in the creative chaos that is my brain, there are hundreds and hundreds of stories running around, articles that peak shyly from behind the shelves wondering if I could maybe, perhaps, write them. And there are blog posts, that come in front of the line, wave enthusiastically and if I ignore them for even a second, they run away, sulking and thinking I don't love them.

I lost a lot of ideas over the years, but something snapped in me today, after that one blog post idea. I don't know why, but today, I decided to change something and save at least some of those plot bunnies.

I set up three new Googledocs files, though I assume regular text files on my HDD would work as well, even a notebook (notebook seems like a popular choice, from what I can tell.) One for stories ideas, one for articles and one for blog posts. I'm determined to use those files to write down ideas, dialogues, snippets - anything that will come to me in moments when I don't have time to write the entire thing right away.

True, I'm not entirely sure how this will work for me. Maybe when I write down the ideas they will dissappear anyway. But I want to find out. Because if there's even a slight chance at this new system helping my productivity (especially in the non-fiction department), then I really want to try it.

Hopefully,it'll work out. If not, I'll move to something else. But I don't want to miss on any ideas.