I spent this weekend going through my file cabinet and cleaning out my workspace in anticipation of moving my stuff into a spare bedroom that is now my office. While going thought different files, I found a goldmine! Years ago in a burst of efficiency, I filed a large folder filled with newspaper clippings, magazine articles and jotted down notes to use for a past newspaper column and content writing jobs. Needless to say, I promptly forgot about this folder.
Further inspection of the filing cabinet yielded more of the same types of treasures. While my husband complains of all of the ripped out magazine pages and jotted notes around the house, they do serve a purpose. Going through these folders and stacks of papers gave me some wonderful ideas for future blog posts.
Don’t give up on old ideas. Always go back periodically through your old papers and even things you wrote years ago.
Speakng of years ago, I found some of my old humor columns printed out and placed in a folder. The column, from
The thing is, even though my first essays weren’t my best pieces of work, they gave me even more ideas for future pieces. They also reminded me I can be very funny when I put my mind to it – I really need to remember I started out writing humor and inject more into my work.
My old ideas are now some great new ideas. This folder was like discovering a long lost friend. Some of the papers I remember storing away, while others – some seven or eight years old – I don’t remember at all. I didn’t put it back in my file cabinet though, I’m afraid I might forget about it again.
What do you do with your old ideas and how do you find news ones?
Discuss…
Deb
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August 27th, 2007 at 8:35 am
My old writings are still up in my web site, just to remind myself how awful I used to write when I was 15. Hahahahahaha~ I’ve made sure that all traces of the worst of them are wiped off from the face of the Internet though.
I have an old notebook where I keep all blurbs I used to write during classes when I was school. It’s fun to read them every once in a while.
As to how I think of new ideas, as I told Misti, I stare at the empty screen until blood starts running down my nose. But seriously, I surf around Yahoo news since blog posts need to be timely anyways, so that’s killing two birds with one stone. I wish I could go out a lot, I believe meeting new people would give me ideas. But since I’m neck deep with work, I can’t even go out during weekends…*sigh*
August 27th, 2007 at 9:13 am
I have oodles of notebooks filled with notes, ideas, plot skeletons, you name it lining bookshelves in the office and all my old stuff saved on backup disks. I have stuff dating all the way back to my junior year of high school sitting there waiting for me to revisit them. It’s surreal to see exactly how badly I wrote back then and how much first college and then even a brief stint in radio copywriting and news media improved my skills.
In fact the children’s novel I’m getting ready to self-publish, under a pen name, is being self-published precisely because it’s a revamped version of a short story I published back in 2002. I intend on doing much the same thing with a partial novel I have laying around somewhere, though I’m pretty sure I can find a traditional house for it since the magazine went under about the time chapter seven was due for print.
I think sometimes we have good ideas, but it takes a while for them to percolate into their full strength and flavor.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Just last night I found an odd word file that I had titled “It’s all about me” while transfering my word files to my new laptop. I opened it to find out what it was and it was a quote that my younger son had said a while back with a few quick notes I jotted down on ideas to turn it into a piece.
I sat down and started writing the piece to submit to a woman’s Christian site that I write for. If I hadn’t saved it months ago, I would never have remembered he said what he said or how I saw it as the opening to a piece. I had already fogotten that I had written it down (or typed it up I should say.)
So I would suggest that you look through your word files (or whatever word processing files you use), too, and see what you have unfinished that you’ve forgotten all about.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:30 am
I keep everything! You never know, an old idea may spark a whole thread of new ones.
Ideas come to me from some of the strangest places. I brainstorm just about every quiet moment I get: on car rides, while grocery shopping, in the shower. You don’t have to obsess over being an “idea machine” but it helps to stay mindful and aware. Inspiration can come from anywhere.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:31 am
I’m a terrible idea person. I’ll see something and think, yeah, sure that might make a good article, but I either promptly forget it or I can’t figure out how to spin it into a query. That’s why I love the trades and they drop ideas into my lap.
August 27th, 2007 at 10:25 am
What a timely post, especially for me! I’m currently putting together a portfolio for admission to a Master’s program in Professional Writing. Last night I was going through some of my older writing, and just cringing at how I would now change what I’d written. I continue to write about the same subject, but from a much different angle. I’m sure that in five years I’ll look at what I’ve written now and have the same reaction.
One of my favorite creative nonfiction pieces came partly from my journals that I’d written while in junior high. It was excruciating to read what I wrote as a 12 year old, but in the end, I had a wonderful piece!
Hopefully this post will serve as the inspiration I need to get my little idea notebook out again!
August 27th, 2007 at 11:36 am
I know what you mean. My husband was looking through some files and found two kids books I had worked on some 10 years ago.
August 27th, 2007 at 11:56 am
I used to have a folder too filled with magazine clippings which I had collected over the years ,but when I had to move countries when I got married I had to discard all the ‘trash’ there is not much room in a NYC appartment for old musings..sigh reading your post Deb made me nostaligic to say the least..
August 27th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I wrote a lot of fiction when I was in high school, most of it on the computer. (I have fond memories of my first laptop, a Compaq 286 with a blue screen.) Although I have a few printed copies, most of it is stored on 3 1/2 inch floppies.
Last year, I took old of my old floppies, updated the file formats, and transferred them all to CD. (Still haven’t thrown away the old disks, though. I’ll probably still have those even when there isn’t a computer to be found with a floppy drive.) I plan to take some of the better story ideas and do some major revising and rewriting…
…One of these days, at any rate.
August 27th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
It’s amazing your floppy disks survived for that long. The disks I used for our school newspaper in high school didn’t survive my college years. They all got unformatted and sadly, I lost a lot of valuable memories. *sigh* High school was such fun.
August 27th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
I had one floppy disk that developed formatting issues early in college, so I lost a semester or two’s worth of work. Other than that, though, everything was intact. I guess I should thank my lucky stars for that one!
August 27th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Thanks for the great idea Debbie. Some of those old journals are painful, but full of inspiration!
August 27th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
I hate my old stuff. I believe that my skill increases constantly so I find anything more than about a year old is unreadable.
I often quote Mozart in the movie Amadeus … “It’s all here - in my noodle”. I like things that are up there much better.
August 28th, 2007 at 1:10 am
I just decided I need a notebook for the ideas that come to me before I fall asleep. I can get some great ideas then. But I can’t remember them right now, because I didn’t write them down.
I find the more I look the more I find as far as topics go. It seems obvious but that’s what works for me.
August 28th, 2007 at 2:25 am
I love going back through my old stuff and cringing at what I used to write. Just as someone else said before, I’m sure in ten years I’ll blush at the thought of what I am writing now! That is the one problem with getting published, it leaves a trail! We can at least all be thankful that our writings from middle and high school were never printed for the public! Especially the diaries!
I used to lose a lot of ideas because I could never remember them long enough to get the down when I finally arrived in a place with paper and pens. Now I carry around little notebooks in my purse and bags. It really helps! I jot down anything from scenery to what people are saying next to me to how I am feeling. Of course, I now have about twenty different tiny notebooks around the house which drives my husband crazy! Thankfully he knows not to throw them out!
The funny thing about my notebooks is that my sister-in-law noticed three of them in one purse one day and therefore decided to buy me an agenda because she thought I was trying to stay organized on appointments and dates! It was thoughtful of her but…well; she’s an engineer and doesn’t really get it!
August 28th, 2007 at 7:22 am
This if off topic: I’ve noticed jobs for grant writers. Do any of you do this and can you recommend some sites or information on how to go about writing them? If not that’s okay…just wondering if someone wants to share their experience or knowledge. :+
August 28th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Hi Micah
I found this link for you, I hope Debs don’t mind me posting it here.
http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com/articles/writingspecialties/grantwritingme.htm
August 28th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Micah:
I learn by doing, so I’ll tell you how I got into the biz.
I volunteer at a number of community and oter nonprofits. Through the years, I got to know people - which is the key to grant writing. Know everyone you can.
If you volunteer at a small to medium size organization, you can tell them you’re a writer. If they have a grant writer, talk to that person and ask them what they do and how you cna make connections. If the organization you are chatting with doesn’t have a grant writer … try to make it a gig!
Grantwriting is mostly just following the instructions. There are some things that everyone looks for in a good grant, but the key is a compelling narrative and good, fundable cause. Throw in some measurables and you have a proposal.
No matter what you read on the topic, do get involved with the organization of your choice as a way to seek out mentors in the nonprofit world. This is a lucrative field, but more importantly it’s rewarding. I love what I do!
August 28th, 2007 at 9:36 am
I had to laugh when I read this post. I do the same thing with ideas for songs. Whether it’s a song or an article, It’s certainly a good idea to hang on to any ideas that you scribble down; you never know when one of these might suddenly make sense to you.
While reading over them can often be excruciating, it also serves as a reminder of how far you’ve come as a writer. On my most recent album,”Undercurrent”, one of the songs was rescued from such a filing cabinet after a good twenty years!
Lyrically, it was always a clunker, but there was something about the chord progression that I’d never really given up on. So, I tinkered with it and ended up rewriting it. I mean, this was a total rewrite, from a completely different point of view. What started up as an immature emotional tirade ended up being a reflective declaration of commitment to a marriage! (Twenty years’ll do that to you)
What made it especially sweet for me was the fact that I enlisted the help of my ten year-old daughter with it–she sang harmony vocals on it, and we delivered it to my wife on her birthday.
If anyone is interested in having a listen, it’s called “Love Is Real” and I made it a free download here…http://www.isound.com/steve_robinson_fl
Feedback is always welcome.
Cheers then,
Steve Robinson (transplanted English songwriter and blogging neophyte)
August 28th, 2007 at 9:51 am
I keep everything I have ever written. I have dozens upon dozens of notebooks and legal pads that I won’t get rid of because they contain a piece of something I started that my muse will one day permit me to finish. They go all the way back to my junior high school years and every time I leaf through them I remember what made me want to be a writer.
The real tragedy in my life isn’t the pile of papers I cart with me during my journey, it’s the pieces of paper that have gone missing from the pile.
I wrote a short story in my 20s. I typed it up for magazine submission and then had people I trusted give it a read-through. As writers, even in our most self-doubting moments, we *know* when we produce something special. It sings. This piece sung to me and it sung to those who read it.
It was lost in one of my many young adult moves. I have never even attempted to rewrite it from memory because it is the only thing I have ever been *completely* satisifed with and I could never hope to replicate that kind of work after so much time has passed. The curse of having a writer’s temperament, I guess.
August 28th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Erik> thank you so much for the tip. I have been trying to get a grant writing gig for the longest time now. I don’t think anyone wants to entrust their grant writing needs to a newbie because I haven’t been successful in that area. But now that I think about it, it makes sense. People from my place could of course, give me a chance. Sometimes I get so cooped up in my own world in front of my PC -working - that I forget everything else (which is bad for a write, I know! I’m trying to change…)
August 28th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Mariella:
You’re most welcome, and feel free to e-mail me questions.
You’re talking about a very different world that needs to be understood. Clients pay beaucoup buckage because you are delivering a whole package to them. I wind up doing financial analysis and strategic planning along with a fair amount of coaching (I was advised to not call it “therapy”) because that’s what they need.
At the very least, you need to know how your bit fits into their needs. Perhaps you can hook up with someone that is strong on the consulting part but knows they are weak as a writer.
Good luck! It’s a tough gig, but worth it.
August 29th, 2007 at 4:04 am
Erik> Thanks a lot! I would like apologize beforehand because once I get to it, you might be receiving a slew of emails from me.
I wish I can find someone who’s great in consultation. I live in a small town. They don’t even know writers could do freelance jobs here. They thought that to be able to make a living by writing I have to work for a publication/newspaper/magazine.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Mariella:
If too many e-mails could hurt me, I’d have been dead a long time ago. Or charged with homocide …
Seriously, I’ve been over to your site and I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to put together a somewhat comprehensive listing of all writer-based sites there are. We appear to be a creative bunch, which is only to be expected, but I would hope that while we get good grades in stuff like grammar and expression we can also get a gold star for “plays well with others”.
(This might be a good time to add that while e-mail is unlikely to kill me, running with scissors is a perrenial problem.)
I bring it up on this thread because if there’s one place I write down partially baked ideas that could be used later, it’s my blog. Perhaps one thing more fun than combing through our own mental attics would be going through someone else’s. Assuming they don’t have bats, that is.
August 30th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Erik>
You gave me a great idea. I’m paying for a new domain next month for a new portfolio and a couple of new blogs. I think I’ll do just that - comb around for a list of writers’ blogs.
Thanks, I’ll update you on that. And don’t run around with scissors. LOL.
August 30th, 2007 at 4:21 am
Thank you for the link Shell. Thank you Erik for the tips. I was thinking of non profit places that have helped me in the past and Ronald McDonald house is a big one. When my son was a baby, he had to be put into NICU for a possible heart problem and times were hard. If not for Ronald McDonald house, I’m not sure how I would of been able to stay so close and get any sleep at all. Anyways, I’m no longer as extroverted as I once was, but will think of your ideas.
P.S. Erik…I know who’s been taking my scissors now! LOL!