My Stack of Ideas
The evolution of my methods
Everyone has ideas. Ideas float all around us and they don’t mean a thing until they are interpreted, shaped and cajoled into an effective form of expression.
Ideas are also living things. They can be connected and linked to other ideas. They might not fit together well with others.
Ideas are transient. When we see, smell or hear something, someone says something completely unrelated, or we remember something, our synapses connect, and create this nebulous thing called an idea in our minds. They are fickle. They come out of nowhere and will disappear quickly if we don’t capture them in a time-capsule of a notebook or a notes app or something semi-permanent.
I get too many ideas - I imagine things, ask what-if and give backstories to casual strangers I see on the train. And when something feels like an idea that could sprout a story, I note it down. I used to write them down in small notebooks. I have about 50 of those notebooks in my study, I kept safe since 2000 I think.
Then over the years, with the coming of smart phones, I shifted to my notes app. I’ll jot them down when I’m out and about. And then when I have free time - like sitting on a train with nothing to do, or watching TV and my fingers need to fidget, I will organise my notes into categories. Picture Book ideas, fiction ideas, ideas about different topics etc.
When I did this, I noticed that I often gravitate towards a certain kind of idea or a topic.
Just having a long list of ideas scares me. It’s too unwieldy. It’s like having them separated into unconnected beings like people in hotel rooms. I needed them to co-exist in groups - so I can see the big picture - I can find them a bit more easily than scouring them one by one.
But to be honest, notes app didn’t allow for play. It was just useful for jotting down. I did try using my apple pen to scribble on it and stuff. But nothing beat a notebook. (No, don’t tell me about Remarkable, I know…) I needed to scribble, doodle, colour in and create in my idea journal.
So for a while I returned to a notebook, but this time I used the notebook as a creative exercise. I will still jot down ideas into my notes app. But then when I get some free time, I will go through the ideas and expand them in my creative journal. It allowed me to free-think the idea and expand. The ones that didn’t have legs, were just copied into the creative journal. The ones that fired up my imagination became a fleshed-out idea.
I’m on my second creative journal now and it looks like it’s going to last longer because I bought a 300-page notebook for it - so I think it’ll last another few months.
The idea of the journal is to nurture and grow the speck of idea in my notes app. The app allows me freedom - I don’t need to carry my notebook everywhere. I can jot down ideas, thoughts, sentences and even dialogue in the app, because I can type really fast. Then when I have headspace, I can take an idea and nurture it in my notebook.
And when the notebook idea seems viable, when it inspires words, scenes and characters in my mind, I switch to a writing notebook or the computer - then it’s time to write the idea - execute it on the page. Like a child, it could surprise you or disappoint you.
Some ideas will sound great but they might not ever become a story or a poem. Yet. Perhaps I need to be a better writer, down the line with different skills before I can transform their potential into something that resembles a literary object.
Some ideas do better when combined with other ideas - and that is why the copying of the idea from the notes app into a creative journal is useful. I can flip through the pages of a previous idea and find a match or a puzzle in which this new idea is the missing piece.
Some might wonder why I do all this… this is my process of thinking. I work better when I bring order to chaos. As I organise, order, sort and arrange, my brain is working to connect, link and imagine.
I can’t fathom a giant pile of ideas like a heap of leaves on an autumn evening. I need to see the detail, connect the pieces, organise them for easy retrieval.
While there is an advantage of finding them easily, the bigger benefit is the work itself - the review of an idea, the mulling over it, putting it in a specific pile - that’s when my brain makes connections and correlations, imagines and builds.
What do you use to write down your ideas? Do you use an app? How do you organise? Share with me!
I am a huge fan of having a notebook for ideas too!