Occupied

(Or 0dds & Ends for June 26, 2012)

1
When does a writer do most of his writing?

In the shower, at the wheel, in church, in meetings, on the hooter, in bed asleep or staring out the window.

It is during those periods after intense thought, when your mind is unguarded and wandering, that you mine the richest material.

More than half of what I write in those times is lost by the time I get to a keyboard or a piece of paper. I try to invent acronyms and can recall 3 or 4 if I have the discipline and the ideas are good enough to exert the energy.

All it takes is a key word and I can recall a paragraph. If I lose the keyword, I lose it all.

Writers daydream a lot.

2
There's a scene in the original Star Trek in which Capt. Kirk gives a landing party the third degree after a brawl with the Klingons. Upon finding that Scotty was responsible for starting it, Kirk confines him to quarters. Mr Scott smiles, a bit encouraged after his dressing down, and says it will give him a chance to get caught up on his technical journals.

I was struck by that as a youngster, that someone would be so passionate about their work they would respond this way even in the face of discipline. I wanted to be that way when I grew up, and I think I am to some extent.

3
I keep track of "posts I didn't post" and "tweets I didn't tweet," not because they are negative or angry or anything like that, but because they could be misinterpreted. Someday I'll post them when the circumstances no longer matter but the observations are just as salient.

 

Started: 2012-06-14