I have books all over the place.

I’ve learned (as I’ve become stronger and more prolific with my writing) that getting a glimmer of an idea is gold. Closing your eyes as you lay in bed or changing the radio dial as you’re at the wheel of your car or reaching for the spatula as you’re fixing dinner and telling yourself “I’ll have to remember that for later” is one of the stupidest damn things you can do as a writer.

You probably won’t remember it. At the very least, you won’t remember every juicy nuance of it, not like you will when it’s fresh in your brain.

I’ve had some amazing, bestselling ideas slip away from me like that. At least, I think they were. I’ll never know now because I don’t remember what the hell they were, other than they were brilliant. Goddammit.

So now I keep a notepad by my bed. I spend my forty-five minute commute with my phone at the ready and I’ll pull over and create a spoken note or email myself if I’ve got something good. I have post-it notes in the kitchen, I’ll scribble on napkins when we’re out at dinner and stuff them in my purse – I even keep a spiral notebook in the cupboard under the sink in the bathroom. You never know where the muse will strike, after all.

My brain is all over the place, and so are my notes. If you come to visit and it looks like that scene from A Beautiful Mind in my house, with notes all over the place, well….you’ll have to excuse me. I’m a writer, you know. The brain only holds so much.