Thursday, December 30, 2010

Showered with Ideas

I get most of my story ideas in the shower.
No, really.

I don't know why that it is so, but it is.  I think that it's probably because time in the shower is my only true "alone time."  Even when no one else is home, I can't always concentrate for all the distractions -- laundry to be done, things to be picked up, dishes to be washed, dinners to be prepared.  I think my mind is just always too full of things to do.  But in the shower, somehow it all seems to fall away long enough that I am able to really think about story ideas, or the review I'm trying to write.  I suppose it's the lack of any real noise, with no phone ringing, no television blaring Nickelodeon, no one asking me if I saw this or did that...just the peaceful sound of the water gurgling down the drain

So, all of that to say that I had an unexpected idea for a scene in my long-suffering story while I was in the shower today, and for once I actually made the time to write it down.  It seems that so often I come up with something and don't take that next step of actually jotting down the idea before it leaves my head.  Which it inevitably does...and then later, I wrack my brain trying to remember the amazing, life-changing, story-saving, sure-to-one-day-wow-a-New York-publisher idea. But it's gone. *sigh*

I don't often make New Year Resolutions; it's just much too easy to break them and feel like a failure, and really, who needs that?  But I do plan to make at least one this year:  to take that moment or two every time I think of something to do with my writing and actually write it down before it's forgotten in the overcrowded recesses of my brain, lost among hockey schedules, band concert dates, and endless things-to-do lists.  If I truly want to be a writer, and perhaps one day an Actual Published Author, I know that I need to start acting on these seeds of ideas, plant them somewhere and see if anything grows. I won't be able to do that if I let them disappear into the abyss...or down the shower drain. 

Where do you get your ideas?  In the shower?  While driving? 
How do you keep it all organized?
Are you making any writing resolutions this year?

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