A Few Little Books Online ShoppingEverything You Always Wanted To Read

New writers: Please Take Note!

Have you ever wondered how some writers seem to have plenty of ideas to work with and others very few? Well, here perhaps is one reason why . . .

If you have ever listened to anyone say something along the lines of ‘I had this most amazing dream last night – but I can’t just remember what it was about’ you may start to guess where I’m coming from.

Firstly, it’s not about writing about dreams! I just used that as an example of the nature of memory. Sometimes your memory is sharp and clear, usually about significant events. Ideas, however, can flutter off down the wind, never to be recovered. Just think about it and tell me you have never had an idea for a story that was gone ten minutes later!

So how to overcome this and retain those great ideas and thoughts that flit across your mind? Well, you could enrol in a memory-boosting course or practice mental control. Me? I use a notebook!

How simple is that? And yet so many people don’t resort to this most basic of aids. Many writers keep different notebooks for different projects – they aren’t used to write the actual story in, just to record thoughts and ideas, plotlines and character points and such like.

However, the notebook I’m talking about is, to me, the most important of all: I call it The Idea Book. Mine’s nothing special to look at – just a small spiral-bound notebook about four inches by three. It slips into any pocket and the spiral binding is great for holding a pen or pencil. It can be used anywhere, anytime. I leave it on my bedside table at night and if I have a vivid dream that wakes me, or I remember in the morning, I write it down quickly, before the mental imagery fades.

Some people think that notebooks are old-fashioned and use modern digital dictaphones or the like. I’ve tried them and yes, you can leave notes on them just fine. The problem I found was being in public and using one. Unless you’re a pretty out-going character, the attention you draw to yourself using such a device can be intimidating – especially if you’ve just had an idea about a juicy love scene for your new romantic novel!

Notebooks, on the other hand, are anonymous. Drag one out at the bus-stop and you could be writing your shopping list for all anyone standing nearby knows – not the case with a dictaphone. Budding writers are often very shy concerning enquiries about their writing and your trusty notebook will allow you to keep your ideas and thoughts private.

And don’t worry if your handwriting isn’t too good. As long as you yourself can read it, it doesn’t matter. By all means transcribe it into a word processing document later but keep your notebooks! You’ll be amazed when, leafing through them in the future, you find odd snippets and pieces that, when you wrote them, you just didn’t bother copying into Word. That’s one of the real values of a notebook – it’s a repository of nuggets that may well lay undisturbed for years.

The very first short story I had published came about that way. I was flipping through an old notebook and suddenly spotted an idea. I couldn’t even remember writing it down! I developed it, wrote it up, and got my first sale in a National women’s magazine. If that had been the only time my notebook paid off, it would have been worth carrying it. I can tell you where my notebook is right at this instant – it’s on the desk by my side. In fact, that little book gave me the idea for this article – I tossed it down and thought ‘what a good idea – writing about notebooks!’ And here’s the proof that carrying a notebook works – even though (this time) I didn’t write the idea down.

So I would advise you to bet a notebook as soon as you can. Go into your local stationery suppliers. Take your time about choosing one – it doesn’t have to be expensive but it must ‘feel right’ for you. It’s going to be with you for some time – until it’s full, in fact – so make sure it’s not too big or too small. Also, try to make sure it’s a common make. Why? Well, swapping notebook types can, believe it or not, be very irritating (as I found out). Once you’ve found your ideal notebook, you’ll want to stick with it.

And lastly – use it. This might sound obvious but using a notebook has to be habitual, not something you do to impress your non-writer friends, and the only way to form a habit is by repetition. Use it every day – even if it’s only to scribble a few notes about how your day has been. In less time than you think you will wonder how you ever got along without it – and all your thought and ideas are captured forever.

About the author

Steve Dempster writes fiction, copy and articles like the one above. For more advice on writing, visit his website
I Want To Write!

Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection – 15 Winners, 26 Nominees $9.96 The Oscar for Animated Short Film has been a useful if not entirely accurate gauge of the state of American animation, as this three-disc set demonstrates. The Academy created the category in the early ’30s to honor Walt Disney’s contributions to the art form. But most of the films in the collection date from the ’40s and ’50s, when Warner Bros. and MGM artists won most of the Oscars for pushing t…

The Auer Legacy, Vol. 3 $32.64 …

Cheerful Baby $1.97 All products are BRAND NEW and factory sealed. Fast shipping and 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed….

Hot XXX Erotic stories $2.99 HOT X-RATED EROTIC SEX STORIES1. Paradise Beach Picnic2. Pampering moments under the shower3. Nice Double Penetration4. Cop Got a Lucky Break5. Wonderful Surprise6. Sleepless Night7. A Married Couple Plus One8. Wet Teacher9. An Unexpected Attraction10. Understanding Boss’s Needs11. Professional Secretarial Services12. A Bizzare Request13. Great Saturday Weekend14. Totally Obsessed15. Birthday…

Addict In The Family: Stories of Loss, Hope, and Recovery. $8.88 Witnessing the addiction of a family member or loved one is a heart-rending experience. But hope can prevail, as shown in this compelling new book. Here, the gripping stories of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters of addicts offer important lessons on loving, detachment, intervention, and self care….

The Epic of Gilgamesh: An English Verison with an Introduction $4.00 This edition provides a prose rendering of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the cycle of poems preserved on clay tablets surviving from ancient Mesopotamia of the third mi llennium B.C. One of the best and most important pieces of epic poetry from human history, predating even Homer’s Iliad by roughly 1,500 years, the Gilgamesh epic tells of the various adventures of that hero-king, including his quest…

short stories $6.66 Somerset Maugham is the acknowledged master of the short story, and his full range is represented in this collection. In acclaimed stories such as ‘Rain’, ‘The Letter’, ‘The Vessel of Wrath’ and ‘The Alien Corn’, Maugham illustrates his wry perception of human weakness and his genius for evoking compelling drama and an acute sense of time and place.

The Selected Short Stories of Anton Chekhov $8.99 A collection of short stories by Anton Chekhov combines the separate short story volumes of ‘The Schoolmistress and Other Stories’, ‘The Wife and Other Stories’, and ‘The Witch and Other Stories’.

The Short Stories of Saki $6.99 A collection of short stories by Saki which includes the following short story volumes: Beasts and Super Beasts, Chronicles of Clovis, Reginald, Reginald in Russia, and The Toys of Peace.

Stories $13.99 This major collection contains all of Doris Lessing’s short fiction, other than the stories set in Africa, from the beginning of her career until now. Set in London, Paris, the south of France, the English countryside, these thirty-five stories reflect the themes that have always characterized Lessing’s work: the bedrock realities of marriage and other relationships between men and women; the crisis of the individual whose very psyche is threatened by a society unattuned to its own most dangerous qualities; the fate of women. From the Trade paperback edition.

Some Short Christmas Stories $2.99 A collection of Christmas stories by Charles Dickens.