Capture and Collect: Idea Management for Writers

If you're creating regular time each week to "resource" your writing life, you're probably enjoying a healthy stream of new ideas. The creative wellspring is highly responsive, especially when we engage in  non-goal-oriented activities like exercise, socializing, favorite hobbies or meditation.

Idea Capture & Collection

How do you manage the juicy, the viable, the marketable and the outright outlandish new ideas you generate each week? 

• Do you keep a master list, or keep separate lists of ideas categorized by form or genre ("articles," "creative non-fiction," "poetry," "fiction")? 

• Do you store your ideas in notebooks or binders, or in files on your computer?

• Do you review your creative "starts" regularly, or just dip into your notes only when you need a new project or idea?

• Do you collect ideas on-the-go?  Do you have a system for integrating them into your master lists?

Idea collection is personal, and I'll offer you no universal answers or prescriptions today.  Instead, I'm writing to encourage you to give some conscious thought to how you capture and retrieve your great ideas. 

Here are a few concepts that inspire my own idea capture and collection.

Experiment with Juxtaposition.

Libraries and bookstores are so creatively stimulating because wildly disparate topics and genres co-exist in close quarters.  Have you ever found that a series of unrelated book titles sparks new associations and creative ideas for you?  This is the power of juxtaposition. 

As you review your idea management systems, consider how the power of juxtaposition might work for you.  Play around with what information you keep and where you keep it.  Binders or folders with seemingly disparate creates an interesting, fruitful dissonance or area of inquiry.  

Date Everything.

I always date hard-copy notes and I've recently gotten in the habit of dating electronic notes, too.  I suggest you try this, too.  I've never regretted being able to trace the timeline of a project.

File Your Reading Notes, Too.

We all know that great writers read!  One of the most useful practices I learned in graduate school was how to create a reading journal.

Are you keeping notes about pieces you like, books you've read?  If not, now's a great time to start.  I'll give you some more specific ideas in an upcoming post here on The Relaxed Writer.

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Your Thoughts?

Tell us about your own ways of capturing and collecting ideas.  What works for you?  Take a moment now to leave us a comment below.

Comments

[Louise]

If I'm at my computer I have a file in MacJournal that I keep "starter" ideas for blog posts and for articles I might want to pitch. But if I'm not at my computer, sometimes I email myself the idea (I always have my iPhone with me ;-) and I also use the iPhone 'notes' section. If something strikes me while I'm writing in my planner I also have a section for ideas in there. Generating ideas never seems to be a problem for me - following up on them is another story ;)

[Marla]

@Jennifer
Funny, I meant to start archiving blog posts in hardcopy awhile back...your comment just reminded me to do so. I love exchanging ideas. :)

[Jennifer Blanchard]

Great post! I have several "writing" notebooks that I use to keep ideas in. I try to have a separate notebook for all the different writing genres I work in--fiction, non-fiction, blog posts, etc.

I'm going to try to remember to date my ideas, thou. That's a great suggestion and one I didn't really think about!