{"id":6868,"date":"2017-09-21T01:00:07","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T08:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=6868"},"modified":"2017-09-21T08:18:58","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T15:18:58","slug":"6868","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/6868\/","title":{"rendered":"How to catch the ideas that flit by."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Today\u2019s Guest Blogger post is from one of my favorite authors, Rachael Herron<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rachael writes:<\/p>\n

A comment by David Sedaris on a podcast gave me an a-ha<\/em> moment recently, and I wanted to share it with you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d always wondered how he got his essays so brilliantly specific\u2014filled with the kind of particulars that put you right into<\/em> the spot where he stands.<\/p>\n

From Me Talk Pretty One Day<\/em>, \u201cFor the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it\u2019s funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I\u2019d squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I\u2019m now told that this is not called \u201cgoing to sleep\u201d but rather \u201cpassing out,\u201d a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

His humor comes from the details.<\/p>\n

But how did he remember those details? <\/strong>When you’re reading his work, you’re right there, exactly with him.<\/p>\n

I have a legendarily bad memory. This is why I blog and journal.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve been stumped in the past as to how to catch the things that flit by, the words I want to remember, the colors of the sunset I\u2019m in front of, the smell from the Korean barbecue on the corner.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not willing to drag out my big ole journal and plop down on the sidewalk to catch my ideas and put them into beautiful sentences. Therefore, I lose a lot of them. I want to live in<\/em> the moment, not next to it.<\/p>\n

The tip David Sedaris gave me? He jots down snippets, and then<\/em> later transcribes and expands them in his diary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often jotted snippets into a tiny Moleskine (because those can seriously go through the washer and come out with your words intact \u2014 ask me how I know). And I journal.<\/p>\n

But combining the two \u2014 grabbing the few words and expanding them later \u2014 this is a really powerful combination that\u2019s netted me some great stuff recently.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So I\u2019ve taken to carrying a purse, even though I hate to do so. I find that tapping ideas into my phone doesn\u2019t have the same feel as grabbing a notebook and pen and scribbling the words that lead to other ideas.<\/p>\n

Of course, I don\u2019t stop the party. I don\u2019t announce that I need quiet for my creative inspiration. My goal is that no one notices what I\u2019m doing. It\u2019s the bank robbery of journaling<\/strong> \u2014 get in and get out before anyone sees your face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Guest Blogger post is from one of my favorite authors, Rachael Herron. Rachael writes: A comment by David Sedaris on a podcast gave me an a-ha moment recently, and I wanted to share it with you. I\u2019d always wondered how he got his essays so brilliantly specific\u2014filled with the kind of particulars that put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104],"tags":[163],"class_list":["post-6868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers","tag-rachael-herron"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s43Dj8-6868","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6868"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6874,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6868\/revisions\/6874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}