Serenity… refocus – seek joy – thrive

Once I identified the problem – that I have too many things rushing in clamoring to be written about, thus causing the dreaded “writer’s block” – the solution seemed simple enough. Create a thought pot to just dump stray thoughts and ideas in, and free my mind for greater things.

 Adam & Eve / The Scrap Paper Project – Gordon Wiebe

Of course writers through the ages have come up with that same solution – and, being the creative folks they are, have also come up with a gazillion different ways to make it work for them. Thought pots, idea traps, journals, what have you, are very personal, and until you find the one that fits how you work and think – if my experience is anything to go by – you’ll start channeling your inner Goldilocks, hopping from chair to chair to find the best tush cushion.

Me, I tried paper notebooks/journals (I can’t read my writing), desktop diaries (a couple of computer crashes cured me of that one), Evernote and OneNote (too scattered and mixed in with other stuff) and different online organizers (great for remembering stuff, but not for this, for me). And who knows what else… I read a few  writing blogs and just about any suggestion or blogger’s personal solution, I’d try it. Or at least think about it until the urge to throw even more time to the winds moved on.

But, you know – I think I’ve finally hit on the almost perfect system for me. And, best of all, as of today there are 55 posts in my drafts folder, but they have lost their power to frighten me into silence – or, worse, bumbling speech – whenever I think of them.

See, on querying myself (instead of everyone else) I realized that my stuff winds up scattered here, there and everywhere because that’s where I need it to be. Logistically, but creatively as well. What I craved was not a way to corral my thoughts, to get them into some sort of order. I needed a way for them run wild and free, to roam in the wide open spaces and peer into the dark corners, be silly or catty, or to just flop down and lay there watching the carousel of clouds floating across the sky.

Ahem. In other words, I wanted a virtual messy desk, complete with corkboard and somewhere to slap up the sticky notes of scribbled, incomplete ideas that just pop into my head. One that I could take with me everywhere, and access from anywhere. The solution, of course, was so simple , so obvious, that I think it qualifies as yet another “duh!” moment.

Create a blog. A place not so much for writing as for the not yet written – the scribbled, the inane, the half-thought out speck of genius, the better off not said, the anything and everything that might maybe be used one day, sooner or later. A place where posts don’t glare at me in silent rebuke for their undone state, because when they are in this one spot they are supposed to be unfinished!  How perfect is that?

That was a beginning, but I still needed a way to have this repository with me, and have access to it, almost anywhere I was. Simple enough, that, as well.

First, I created the blog using WordPress and set it as private. I named it; that seemed like an important step to me, so that I would know it was just for writing. I use Windows Live Writer for blogging but for catching stray thoughts when I am surfing the web or doing just about anything else on the computer, I needed something different, something separate.

Since I use the Firefox browser, the Firefox add-on Scribefire seemed like it would be a perfect fit; it can be used offline (just save whatever you post as “note”) or online, so that items go directly to the site. The only blog set up on Scribefire is the one for the bits of writing, so that I can just write and not have to think or worry about sending gibberish to the wrong blog when something strikes.

I also have WordPress on my Blackberry, so I can send badly typed notes to the blog from there, ready for deciphering later.

The best part of all this is – what I write to the blog from one place propagates to all the others so that, even if I never visit the site itself, it acts as a sort of central idea station. My disconnected blatherings are all right at my fingertips, so that wherever I am I can scroll through and see if anything yells out that it’s ready to head for the finishing room.

All this lets me send stuff from anywhere and then forget it. No drafts, these – all published posts. Granted, I am the only one that can see them, but it still makes a difference in my puny brain. 

I say my system is almost perfect because I’d like the ability to just visit the front page of the site and have the posts randomized, whenever I reload the page. Like shuffling index cards or something. I’m pretty sure there is a way to do this, and I’ll check that out next. Once I can do that, it’ll still be almost perfect, but at least closer to my ideal.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 at 11:45 am and is filed under index card, journal, organizing me, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.