The Importance of Little Scribbles

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I don’t actually know how I became a scribbler.

I remember several years ago, I was doing an online creative writing course and they kept saying how important it is to keep a journal of some kind. A notebook, preferably a cutesy one with smart sayings and quotes on. I mean, if you don’t like the look of the damn thing, how are you ever going to bring yourself to carry it everywhere (and gasp even write in it?).

So, I got a notebook. And then another and the next thing I knew my house was covered in all sorts of pretty little agendas, notebooks of various sizes and shapes, some lined, some with plain white paper, some with bookmarks, some with various sections like ‘Ideas’ and ‘Things to Do’.

Basically, a small army of notebooks was now at my disposal.

And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to actually…ahem write in them. I knew I was supposed to and I wanted to, but I just couldn’t get it out of my head that as soon as I wrote the idea down, it would stop appealing. I don’t know how I came to that conclusion and I see now how ludicrous it was. But…you know, kids…whatcha gonna do?

For years, my notebooks waited, littering the house and not actually doing anything useful for society. No ideas were jotted down and I hate to think how many were lost because of my carelessness. I just figured I wasn’t a journal type of person. I got my ideas in my head, I don’t need to put it down.

A lie, but one I was willing to believe.

And this went on until I developed a daily writing practice. That’s when I would get random ideas in my head and quickly write them down, not knowing if they would lead somewhere, but on the off-chance they might. And slowly, I developed into this things called a “writer” – a strange beast that lurks in semi-darkness, with an oversized coffee mug in their hand and a permanent ‘what am I doing’ expression on their face.

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As I started working on longer stories that stretched over multiple days and even weeks of continuous writing, my availability for new ideas diminished. It’s not that I wasn’t getting them. On the contrary, I’ve never been as productive as I am now. Something I’ve discovered is, the more you write, the more you want to write. The more you develop creatively, the more easier it will be to get ideas (and more importantly, to trust those ideas).

But the thing was, I was always caught up in a larger story and I couldn’t just drop everything to pursue another. Working two stories at the same time only works if one of them is really short. At least for me.

Enter my army of notebooks. I started writing down all the weird thoughts that popped up in my head, all the ones that might have a story hiding in them. I made lists and crazed 3 A.M. scribbles that later took me a week to figure out. I wrote down ideas that became great stories and thoughts that came to nothing.

Right now, I’ve lost count of how many ideas I have written down, just waiting for me to finish the story I’m currently working on. I don’t remember any of them and I often read through my notebooks with delight at these novel ideas. They’re not actually novel, I’ve thought them before. And the old me would have said ‘I’m going to remember that for sure, no need to write it down’.

I can’t even remember the ideas I had yesterday.

Basically because my mind is a forever-spinning mill of sorts, there’s always new stories coming in and going out. And the chances of actually remembering one are one in a million.

Now, I go on any trip, no matter how short or long, with at least a couple of notebooks with me. And of course, I have the ‘Notes’ app on my phone, in case of emergency. Now, I always have a notebook or (as it happens) a really hefty agenda right by my laptop.

And I go through them, periodically. Some are good ideas. Some not. At least now I understand what they meant about keeping a notebook with you at all times.

Who knows, maybe this ‘writer’ thing isn’t as bonkers as it sounds…

 Care to check some of those stories out? My book ‘Grimmest Things’ is available now on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback.
@ Photo Credits: 1. Photo by Chimene Gaspar on Unsplash; 2. Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.