Ideas are everywhere – even in old fuddy duddy museums to the Historic dockyards in Chatham. A trip on the bus, a walk by the river, hike over a hill – all yield ideas.

I  used to scribble ideas in notebooks, behind bus-tickets and on post-it stickers. Then came the phone. When I was on the move, I usually opened a new item in my digital post-it and wrote my ideas there.

I discovered that I had a bag full of ideas, starting lines, summaries, synopsis for books from when I started writing seriously. I have moved them from their musty paper files into a large white plastic bag. I am not sure how to sort this now.

Then I have notebooks and note-cards filled with ideas of picture books, non-fiction articles, poems and even novels.

The there is the phone and the tablet and even the PC.

Once in a while I try to bring some order to this chaotic creative process. Do I copy them out into notebooks? But if I have to use a new notebook – all ideas are surely not eligible? Some are cliched. Some are old. Some are just whimsical. Some are just ideas – the topic doesn’t even interest me.

So should I just pin them to a board on the wall? Perhaps keep a box-file full of ideas? How do I figure out if some ideas might work together in one book? Maybe there are recurrent themes?

I start to create a file, a folder, some kind of filing system.
I struggle.
I give up.

Surely I can’t create books out of all of these. Maybe I should compile them and give them away? Maybe sell writing prompts. Maybe make an e-book out of it.

I don’t know. I am not sure I even know which ones to give away or keep – because I have not tabulated them,  indexed them.

Perhaps they are like wild oats. They are not meant to be sowed in a row. Maybe they need to be scattered. Just plucked out of their slumber when I chance upon them.

Do you organise your ideas? Do you record them in only one book? Do you have lots of idea-stores?

Tell me about them.

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Find out about Chitra Soundar at www.chitrasoundar.com

www.chitrasoundar.com