Brain Pokes

"The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth-century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six months, or six years down the road. But he has faith that it will happen." — Carl Ally

I need to get better at saving ideas. I have them all the time... things that make me go "huh?" or "what if that...?", etc, but are not complete stories. I need to have a notebook with me at all times, in my pocket or my purse or my night stand. Or, at the very least, a pen so I can write on the inside of my arm.

I need to keep a file. I have some binders where I've plopped fairly complete ideas, but I'm talking about the little things. The glance of something that intrigues you or the news story that made you chuckle or wonder (like the fact that I'm beginning to have a phobia of being glued to a public restroom toilet seat since it's happened to two different people now -- I know, there are a gazillion people in the world and the odds of it happening to me, or worse to my daughter, are slim. But they still exist and who'da thunk it?).

It would be my own little world of story or scene prompts.

I have been stung by bees multiple times since we moved to New Hampshire. In fact, I would hazard a guess that I've been stung more in the last six years than in the previous thirty-some-odd. And a few of those times have been interesting. One of them I'm planning to put in my Camilla book as an additional scene because it was kind of unusual.

Those are the kind of little ideas that I'm talking about.

What do you do when you have something fairly insignificant, but still interesting, poke at your brain?