Just this week I decided that I'm going on a notebook diet. Notebooks are both too useless and too compelling for me as a person with hoarder genes. The older one's own handwriting gets, the more it seems worthy of hoarding--better to kill it now. I went through the four or five notebooks in my den, and ripped out and threw out all but a dozen or so pages, some of garden recordkeeping and some of scraps of writing. I'll get the scraps of writing into my computer (probably as backlogged posts in my blog), create an OmniOutliner document of dated garden notes, and toss those pages, too. I have probably forty reporters' notebooks somewhere in a box, and I'll do the same when I uncover them. I do find notebooks useful, but only because they produce a sort of slow thoughtful mental state that's handy when I'm brainstorming. The product can then be useful elsewhere--in planning a garden, or a piece of code, or a party, or, yes, a piece of writing. But the page itself is rarely needed for the later activity. So I'll plop a notebook wherever I might want one, but from now on I'll make a point of ripping and tossing the pages regularly.
OW! ChickenFreak! You're killing your children! I realize, of course, that most of what goes into notebooks never gets used. But that's okay. It's no reason to rip them apart and destroy what you think, right now, isn't useful. I have experience with this sort of thing, and I know what I'm talking about. I used to have a sheet-music manuscript book, and I wrote out tunes, guitar chords, and lyrics of songs I was working on at the time. I decided, years ago, to get rid of this book, because I'd never finished most of the songs in it and I thought I'd outgrown it all, anyway. I couldn't imagine ever being interested in my songwriting "juvenilia" again. But I still remember some of the music, and I'd kill to have that book back. I find myself, ten or fifteen years after throwing it all away, realizing that some of the stuff in there was good - maybe some of the best songs, or fragments of songs, I've ever come up with. I'd love to be able to take a second look at that material and see if I can finish it. Don't throw away your own work. I can almost guarantee that someday you'll regret it.
Let me see. I have two notebooks filled with journal entries that I keep in a locked briefcase. I had another journal before these but I ripped it and burned it in a fit of adolescent rage. Now I just type all my journal entries on a laptop, or if I am not at home I use the phone's note app and then send them via Bluetooth. I have two other notebooks to write my ideas on and doodle, both of which I carry together (retarded, I know). I also have two (and another three backup) small pads (the size of my hand), that I keep on me at all times. I have this disease; it's called "MUST SAVE MY IDEAS BEFORE I FORGET THEM. Oops what was I supposed to do now?".
I appreciate the advice, but that's where thwarting the hoarder genes comes in. Over-indulging "what if I need it someday?" will destroy me far faster than under-indulging it and throwing out something that I later regret. I'm not keeping nothing - I kept those several pages, and when I come on the roleplaying adventures that I wrote and was proud of I'll hang on to them. And so on. But it's a slippery slope from "it's just one box of notebooks" to having whole rooms filled with "but I haven't read that yet!" newspapers, and I refuse to start sliding.
Not quite the same thing, I know, but I have a friend who'd kept journals from the day she was married (40 years ago). About five years ago she had what I still think was a 'bit of a do' and she threw them all away. The minute they were gone, she was distraught. She still doesn't know what possessed her. She does her journals again, every day, but what she's lost, she can never replace. I can't throw notebooks, bits of paper, cut outs, etc. away. I must have saved them for something. I think.
I travel a lot for my job and a couple notebooks are great for me. I like to doodle with story lines early on and it helps me to have visuals that I can scribble out on paper. Plus I can plop down fragments or BS from real life that pop in my brain. I also use an Iphone app voice recorder to record bits of stories and dialogue when i am driving. Great way to get it down when writing isn't an option in the moment.
Hmmmm, I just did a sweep of my room and found 6 notebooks that have ideas and short passages in them. Must are spiral so a lot of the pages have been torn out, they'd be about half full by now if I kept them in. Now I have a bunch of random pages floating around with notes, ideas etc. from like two years ago. More recently I've been using a PC, and I have a great deal on a USB stick that I carry around at all times.
A varied range of replies so far. I can see I am not alone in having many notebooks. It's interesting though that there seems to be two camps here: those who have a handful of notebooks (or do not keep notes at all), and those who, like me, have loads, many of which aren't even full. I keep notebooks for all sorts of things: making lists, journals, story ideas, scrapbooks. This is why I have so many I guess. I buy a new notebook each time I think up a new 'category' of notebook to keep. I'm not a hoarder in any sense of the word, but I like to keep all my completed notebooks together in a box, and wouldn't want to throw them away, in case I look back at them and get new ideas. I also make notes on my laptop and my iPhone on the go; whatever is handy. Making notes is compulsive for me and only semi-organised; it depends on where I am and what I'm doing when ideas strike. Increasingly I am making notes more on my laptop though. I also had some notepads in my teens but I threw those away - if I'd kept them I'd have even more! Thanks everyone who has replied so far - it is interesting to find out how other writers work.
I used to carry small notepads and a pencil wherever I went. But somewhere along the line I found that I dedicated more of my brain power to remembering story details than I did to other stuff, like... umm... what were we talking about? Oh! Right! Notepads. No, I don't have any notepads now. I just tend to remember things.
On paper over 50, and all of them are stored in my old bedroom in my parents house. Now I have about 3 here that are focusing more on the book I am currently writing. I rarely look back on them unless there is a scene I remember that I need to go back to. For now I am writing off of the top of my head.
I probably have around 10+ I'm not sure the actual number. I love notebooks though, but I do most of my actual story writing on the computer. The notebooks are for times I do not have access to the computer. I have a hard time hand writing for a long period of time because of chronic pain. Typing is just easier and less painful.
Okay well i happen to be one of those authors that if you give me any kind of animal or topic i can come up with a book for it. The only problem is that though i think i have a lot of great ideas for books, i think i should only do the ones that may have the best chances of being published. Help -i need to pick out of so many titles! (I'll give a one-sentence summery as well) AndroidXL64: Novel about a young orphan girl with her robot in a world where the world is nothing but desert and it is her job to find a way to bring life back to the land. Curse of the Mercenary: novel about a girl who is bitten by a naga and turns into a half-blood -she must choose between the naga or the human races who are at war to side with. Owl Charm: novel about an ordinary girl who receives a necklace with an owl charm on it and begins to experience powers similar to that of an owl's natural abilities. Shadow Walker: novel about a girl who supposedly has "stolen" a prize horse from racing when no one knows it is in truth a nightmare. Gladiator: novel about a roman princess who is mistaken for a gladiator and must earn her freedom -and if she is discovered to be who she is she will be killed. Dragon Gag: novel about a dog-like creature who looks like an average puppy to everyone but a tiny girl who knows he can burn down the house without so much as a bark. Ghost of the Hall: novel about a young boy who moves into a new house and discovers the ghost of a young girl who was murdered many years before.
Having us choose the stories may not be the best idea. People will certainly look at these ideas and say "this sounds great" or "that sounds like crap" feedback, which isn't really going to do you much good in the long run. I think, to eliminate them, you should try writing some, or all of them, out and seeing which ones feel like you'll be able to take them somewhere. Maybe you'll find that selected pieces will end up on the back burner until who knows when, and then they'll come forward and be the new greatest piece. Really, I think the best way to determine what is going to be publishing material depends entirely on how the story is written.
well to be honest it takes more than a great idea to get published, even a crappy idea if written well can be published and interesting read, but than again so many worthless stuff has been published some of it not even worth the paper they published on (not saying your stuff is worthless) so who knows how many good stuff was'nt published... but the AndroidXL64 seems interesting to me
The one with the best chance of being published is the one that is the best-written. Pick whichever one is closest to you and that you feel you can really explore and write well. If you don't know which one this is, try writing a scene from each and see which one resonates most with you.
Pick the one you an do the most with to work on now. Save ALL the rest for later. Some you will never get around to, as they slide inexorably down the growing backlog of ideas. No one can make your choices for you.
as it stands... i have 4 projects i have yet to complete. but reading walt whitman for school last night, i was inspired to create YET ANOTHER story and i'm just wondering what you guys think about having maybe one too many ideas? i actually think it's both good and bad. good because it's proof that your creative juices are still flowing and having a lot of ideas in your mental queue is good because when i finally finish one -- i'll just move on to the next with ease. the bad thing i think is that new ideas can take away focus from old ideas. but i also have a bit of insecurity with my writing so another bad thing i can think of is that coming up with a new idea is some sort of sign that the previous ideas were crap. i don't know, i'm talking too much again... what do you guys think?
Try and use the inspiration towards the works you are currently working on. I can get inspiration from almost anything.
I put all my new ideas into an Ideas file and I look to it for ispiration. Some of those become stories, some don't. But writing the main project takes discipline, and not letting wayward ideas prevent you from finishing what you've started. So, no, I don't think there's such a thing as 'too many ideas'.
No such thing as too many ideas - there is such a thing as too little focus. Write up the idea so you won't forget it; file it; pick up one current project and continue toward the finish.
