My Memory is Not What It Used to Be...And My Brilliant Idea

It's confirmed.  My mother says this to me all the time but I didn't think it would ever happen to me, and not so soon anyway.  Sure, I'd forget things here and there but not like this!  This brain-sieve is very detrimental for us writers and so having a pen and paper handy is a MUST. 

I'm sure you can relate.  Haven't you had an idea and said to yourself you'd write it down and never did?  In the old days, the idea would come back to me at the most inopportune time. Lately though it's not happening at all!  Once I forget, I forget for good.  As my nephew Joseph says when he'd see my mother shove things into her humongous handbag, in his droll, funny way: "It belongs to the labyrinth now."  Trust me - you had to be there - it's side-stitchingly funny.

Well, it happened again but for once, I'm happy to report, I listened.  I'm working on a couple of WIPs:  one is a horror/paranormal short story, a coming of age novel, a literary short story and an historical, romance novel.  Different genres - nothing like spreading myself too thin - but I've been stuck on my coming of age novel for a couple of months now and the more I'm on Twitter and the more I immerse myself in the nuts and bolts of the publishing world, the more I realize that the way my novel exists now, no agent would want to touch it.  Of course, exceptional writing will get you everywhere too but I'm not so deluded to think that I even come close!

All good and well -- you think your book is brilliant -- but will it sell?  While pondering this, I suddenly hit upon a wonderful idea for my novel that would incorporate all the bits and pieces I already had, plus, having that little extra something that I hope will make agents salivate.  

I am so glad that I did not give into my usual, "I'll write it out later" mode, otherwise I could have waved bye-bye to my wonderful idea.  It just so happens that I did have to go out, and my son was impatiently waiting, but I told him we had to wait until I had finished typing.

Now it's two weeks later.  After reworking my paranormal short story -- will it ever end? -- and letting it simmer in the background, I decided to go back to my brilliant idea.  Long story short - I have two Word Processing programs on my notebook (my moon is in Gemini what can I say -- multi-tasking is a way of life for me) neither one has full capabilities (Microsoft why did you have to do this to me - why do I have to spend more money??) so I find myself jumping from one program to the other when I need to do what one program cannot -- looking for the outline I swore I wrote.  I'd found one version in which I barely mentioned my twist, plus my old outline, but the idea wasn't fully fleshed out.  I was sure I practically wrote the entire novel right on the spot, or enough that would pull me through this new direction, but where was it?   I knew I'd typed it up because I recalled how elated I felt that I'd found the answer I was praying for.

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.  Did I not type it?  Was this all I wrote?  Believe me, my whole spirit sank down to the floor until I decided to check the other Word Processing program --perhaps I'd saved it there!   Well friends, I'm happy to say that's exactly what happened.  I'm soo happy.  Most of the new storyline was actually outlined, incorporating the new and old.  

The sad thing about all this is that had I not found it, I WOULD NOT HAVE REMEMBERED ONE IOTA except the very obvious, original new twist.  Sad, isn't it?  Let this be a reminder to all of you to never, ever walk away when you are bubbling with ideas.  This has happened to me too many times even though you'd think I'd learn after the first time.  As a matter of fact, I could have been written the 'Twilight' books instead of Stephanie Meyer!!!  Yes, it's true, I had the same dream...

Has this ever happened to you?  If so, did you ever reclaim your wonderful idea or was it lost forever?

Let me know.

Au Revoir for now