This is so unbelievably important that I shouldn’t even have to tell you. But I’ve fallen victim to letting my thoughts go unwritten or unsketched myself, so I figure some of you might have the same problem.
The human brain is an amazing piece of evolutionary creation. It can do things no other organ in the history of the planet has been able to do. You can thank it for being essentially everything that you are and make.
But it’s far from perfect.
Your brain (and I guess your mind, if you can even make that distinction) sees or hears or senses some things, combines them together with other things and with some of your memories and thoughts, and there’s your idea. A great story or character concept, a design for something that fits perfectly into one of your projects, a song or part of a song, a music video, a striking image, a game or some other form of interactive artwork, anything. It’s your idea, yours and your alone. Conceived by some beautiful chemical reactions in your brain, your idea is now floating in the vast ocean of your mind, like a small collection of driftwood.
I haven’t yet described the exact vastness of this ocean. It’s pretty vast. Really vast. But also busy. Even when sleeping, your brain is an active little thing. Neurons are flashing about a bajillion times per second, and that small collection of driftwood can get lost pretty quickly.
The point is that your brain is always on, and always looking for more room, and if you don’t write or sketch down your idea, your brain will replace, morph, or forget your original idea entirely.
Keep a notebook on you at all times, even if it’s just a small notepad. Some people like to go all fancy and get one of those Moleskine things, but the quality of a notebook has very littly to do with the quality of the ideas within it. Any scrap of paper will do, really. If you’re on your computer at the time of conception, open up your text editor of choice and write it all down.
Again, the point is that you create a connection from your mind to the ‘real’ world, and through that connection both strengthen the original idea in your mind, and have a reference for the idea outside of it.
I’m sure you’ve had great ideas disappear into the depths of your mind before. Do yourself a favor and do the one thing you need to do to ensure it won’t happen again.
Write them down.
