Saturday, August 15, 2009

Capturing ideas

Wow, has it really been two months since my last post? Guess I was busier than I thought.

Anyway, I have been somewhat productive when time allowed. Making progress on the rough draft of my manuscript (2,738 words, yay me.)

I have also been working on better ways to capture all of the random crap (ideas, thoughts, etc...) that pops into my head, usually at the most inconvenient moment possible. I use to carry small pocket sized composition books with me wherever I went so I could jot down these random moments of divine inspiration. They work great, but it became too much of a burden to keep up with the little books and after losing one of them, I decided to find a better mousetrap.

Being the tech guru I'm not, it took some time devise a simple trapping technique for these rogue nuggets of creativity. I'm lazy and unorganized by choice, so my new system had to be compatible with my personality. Once I realized that I could text messages from my cell phone to my gmail account and filter the messages by their subject line, I knew i had found composition book 2.0.

In a nutshell; I get an idea for a story, a title, a character, a chunk of dialogue, whatever, I simply send it in a multimedia text message to my gmail. By putting relative keywords in the subject line, I can create filters to label the messages accordingly. When I need to retrieve the info, I just click on the appropriate label and every message I sent pops up instantly.

Easy, green, and I don't have to worry about it getting washed in my jeans.

~t

3 comments:

Tabitha Bird said...

great idea! I am a note book gal. Only because my cell phone is either lost or missing in action!

T.L. Byford said...

Yeah, I normally use notebooks or composition books at home. They are stashed everywhere. In fact, I have a bit of a stationary addiction.

I use the cell phone when I'm on the go. I always have it with me and once I send a text, I don't have to worry about keeping up with it. Even if I lose my phone, the info is in my gmail.

~t

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