Here we both are again, rolling our eyes over the same text, but not the same as last time. When I said "same text," I meant you're looking at the same words I'm looking at, but it's different from the last stuff I wrote. Having cleared that up, probably unnecessarily, let's move on.
You know how you have the best ideas in the places where it's not very easy to take notes? Buckaroo Banzai calls them the three Bs: bed, bus and bath. They come to you when you're showering or brushing your teeth, driving or riding on the bus and staring out the window, or while you're lying in bed hoping that you can fall asleep because you have an early morning meeting that you
have to be on time for. You know what I'm talking about. They're the best ideas because your mind's relaxed, you don't have to pay attention to what you're doing and your mind is free to make connections between crazy things without fear of being censored. And then you come up with a simple, elegant solution to the problem you've been trying to work out or you've got a great idea that fits perfectly with what you were thinking before.
The only trouble with those revelations is you're in the middle of doing something else and I don't know about you, but I always have to debate whether the idea is worth climbing out of bed for to write down because I know I'll forget it by the time I wake up. Or if I'm in the shower, I have to decide if I mind some water drips on my notebook. Yes, I have some trouble retaining good ideas, probably because they feel all out of place in my head, which probably looks like a frigate in a bottle on the inside. It's not unusual at all for me to be lying in bed and jump out all of a sudden to write something down that I think is absolutely brilliant.
Recently, I've been keeping my iPhone by my bed to take those kinds of notes on. (I have most of my brilliant flashes while I'm in bed.) There are a couple of advantages with that. When I need to write down some notes, it makes its own light. I don't have to turn a light on, like I do with my notebook. The other nifty thing is that the notes automatically make it to the computer I do my writing on, so I have them in one place.
The disadvantages are that I'm less inclined to jump out of the shower to take a note because I don't want to hurt my nifty phone, where with a notebook, I just wipe my hands off and write. A couple of drips on the page don't bother me. The other thing I can think of is that if I have it in the bedroom, it makes noises at me as it gets emails and other things, which is annoying when I'm trying to sleep.
The important thing here, though, is to take the notes. You'll be glad you did.
This last week, we were watching the old Miracle on 34th Street and I watched Maureen O'Hara add her little note on the little girl's letter to Santa. That's when I had a realization--my handwriting totally sucks. It's not bad, it's just that her penmanship was so much more fluid and beautifully legible than mine.
