If you're a creative type like me, you probably have the same problem I do -- you're working on a project, and yet in the midst of it, you get a really great idea! You have to fight that new idea away so that you can focus on your task at hand.
So, what do you do with that new idea so that you can focus, AND so you can come back to the new brilliant idea later?
Like most of writing / creating, you have to find what works for you. For me, I keep an idea book. It's nothing fancy or special. I use a notebook that I can take pages in and out of. Currently, I have a disc bound journal.
I put the idea at the top of the page, and the only other thing I write on that page is further development of that idea. Basically, each idea gets its own space to grow. Some ideas I've had in there for years, others are new. And sometimes when I least expect it, I think of something to further develop one of the ideas in my book. Then I write the new growth, but still remained focused on my current project.
Sometimes ideas are very vague, like concepts, and others are more concrete with details and an outline. I leave the ideas in the book until I finish my current task. For example, my last book, Mages of the Lake, started in my idea book. When I first came up with the idea, all I wrote in the book was, "a girl grows up in a magic society but doesn't have magic of her own." That was it, for almost two years. Then I started to think about it more and more. Sometimes I would have "aha" moments and add to the page. I try my best to let ideas grow in their own time. Some are fast growers, and some are very slow.
I even sometimes add quotes from other things I've read. Other writers are one of my biggest sources of inspiration. (I might be biased, but I think books and writers are kind of magic).
Whatever you're working on right now, hope it's going well.
Happy reading and writing today and every day!
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