Wednesday, January 5, 2011

A Well-Watered Brain...Or Where Do the Words Come From

~~Many writers swear that their best ideas come right before they go to sleep or when they are in the shower. Whatever the reason is, it seems that we find words when we quit looking too hard. Sometimes I get out of the shower with entire scenes playing out in the most amazing and perfect words. In fact, if I get into my shower after looking over the scene I'm working on, I usually get out with a great idea for carrying the story forward.

~~So how do we not lose all these great ideas and words down the drain? I've always hurried to dry off, running to my nightstand, and grabbing up the notepad and pen that I keep there for the night time ideas and scribble away--in the nude! ; ) But there's a new way to keep from washing the words away with the soap suds--AquaNotes. Yes, it's really a product that is available now. "AquaNotes® is a waterproof notepad that allows you to record your great ideas while you're in the shower. It's so durable you can even write underwater. They're recyclable, environmentally friendly, and the notepad is printed with soy-based ink." If you don't believe me, go HERE to see for yourself.

~~However the words come, I have to say, my word production has really increased in the last 3 or so months. Since the last week of October, I've written, edited and saved over 32,000 words into my Rough Draft file for FRIENDLY FIRE. I've made completing the Rough Draft by the end of March a resolution for my new year. This week, I've gone back into my outline and notes in color what stage each scene is in. It was eye opening and far better than I thought it would be. Here's the stats:
***Scenes that are typed and in the Rough Draft file--26% of the work in progress
***Scenes that are typed and waiting for editing--18%
***Scenes that are still in long hand--36%
***Scenes that are still just a title or possibly a jot list of notes--19%
The last category was the one that pleasantly surprised me. I thought there were far more than there are. So back to the shower for me. Let's get this Rough Draft done! ; )