This index card trick is cute... but unfortunately it goes against the way I write, which is to just write whatever comes into my head, with perhaps a vague idea of what I want to happen and how I want it to come out. All my freeform stuff seems to be the better stuff that I've written, while work which has prerequisites tends to be stiff and unappealing and is also more difficult to write. It's difficult to get interested in, too. When it's all new to me, it's more fun.
I try to keep basic ideas in my head; if they're compelling enough, I feel, they'll stick. If I think it's too fragmentary or elaborate to remember, I'll actually write the piece of text which contains it, and set that aside for later inclusion with the work; sometimes they need to be edited in light of what I subsequently write, but there's a finished piece of text there rather than an idea, and it's fresh from the moment I thought of it. But basic points have a tendency to remind me of themselves.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-01 07:52 am (UTC)I try to keep basic ideas in my head; if they're compelling enough, I feel, they'll stick. If I think it's too fragmentary or elaborate to remember, I'll actually write the piece of text which contains it, and set that aside for later inclusion with the work; sometimes they need to be edited in light of what I subsequently write, but there's a finished piece of text there rather than an idea, and it's fresh from the moment I thought of it. But basic points have a tendency to remind me of themselves.