Chase the muse on the Uptown 6
I was grousing to Jeff yesterday about the little writing project I have up and running. I mentioned the night before, I lay staring at the ceiling after lights out, rolling from side to side looking for even one idea for a story and was getting bubkis. There is still plenty of time, I know and wasn't really worried other than the hours I wasted looking in an empty and obviously too-tired brain for a story. As Stephen King would say, the moving guys were still down in the basement and hadn't started moving furniture up stairs for me to rearrange. So whatever.
Then I swear to CHRIST, yesterday as I'm power-shuffling across 23rd street to catch the uptown 6 train, a character starts to form and then two and then a story starts unwinding in my brain and I'm sure as shit going to miss the opportunity if I wait until I get home to the AMBR to get it entered so I get on the subway, pull out my faxed lab results from my physical last week which is my only spare paper in the bag and start furiously scribbling the wedge that's stuck in my head. And so I guess that's how that particular muse is going to dance for me. I'm keeping some spare paper handy from now on to catch all this righteous brain leakage from now on.
When you least expect it, eh? I took to carrying around a little digital recorder to serve as the sponge for my brain leaks ... they tend to happen while I'm driving. And when they happen while walking down 5th Avenue, you get the added bonus of looking like a crazy person, talking into what looks like a cigarette lighter. I was hoping people would think I was an international spy.
Apparently it was too little, because I lost it ... but it was a good tool while it lasted.
See? I told you it would come. I can't wait to read what the muse has whispered in your ear.
I have post-its all over the place, some of them with only one word...but that's usually all it takes for me to recall what it meant. It helps. I would love a recorder, but I've never felt I had enough ideas to tape...
You ought to try a little tape recorder. That works well too. I don't write, but I use it for directions.