Strays

Maybe this is true of more than just writing, but stray thoughts enter my head at odd times when I’m working on a book.

For example, I keep getting those random moments where something pops into my head about my book Next Time, which I’m editing now. Sitting at breakfast, trying to fall asleep, watching a movie…all are settings where the story makes an appearance in my brain.

I’ve written before of how it’s helped me to go for a walk or a run and come back with something resolved in the story I’m working on. These other stray thoughts, though, don’t usually seem as impactful as those. Granted, they’re good ideas, but lower on the seismic scale of shaking up the story or characters.

In editing mode, the thoughts have more to do with emphasizing a scene late in the book, inserting some moments along the way to better explain a payoff toward the end, and even taking out some dialogue, in this case the pseudo-scientific explanation for a character’s condition. If I leave in the original text, which talks about science way over my head, all it’ll do is get me in trouble.

Maybe I should carry around a notebook with me to jot these things down. Wait, I do. It’s called a smart phone.