REPOST

Jot it down | June 18, 2013

It’s “J” week. I will admit being fully flummoxed at what to write once again. I also realized that my consistency has been off as I’ve devoted time to other projects. As I was writing though, it occurred to me that two things were at play and both were “J” words. Both are also things that we all do everyday and have in our arsenal to become great writers when properly employed. Jot it down, and Juggle.
I have to write it down (jot it down) if I’m doing something else, or else I’ll never recall it later. That might be years catching up to me or years down the line, but I digress. 🙂 I have my trusty planner with me everywhere I go. There are post it notes in the car and a blank journal in my briefcase just in case the muse wakes up and decides to kick me in the ass at an inopportune moment. I’m ready. Whatever memory device you have, use it. Being able to put your hands back on that golden idea when life decides to give you time to do it, is vital to your ability to move forward from the starting line.
Second is juggle, and we’ve been doing it since we were little. How many of us have carried a frog or a worm or a dead something or other while chasing the girls on the playground avoiding the lunch maids? Or snatched a friends something and played keep away with a group of friends. Writing is the same. We juggle different activities, actions, and ideas when we write…we just do it in our mind instead of literally. We take a plot line, a character trait, an action and a reaction and put it together to create a scene….it is the ultimate juggle as we have all the minutia of the details to keep in the air and working in sync to bring it together.
Now, I will say that some of us are better at this than others, but that is about practice. We likely fell the first time or two we tried to catch a frog never mind chased someone with it. We likely fumbled a bit the details the first go ’round with the details of a scene we were scripting too. Give yourself permission to jumble the details a little while you hone your craft.
At the end of the day, we all jumble before we juggle well. And, if you have too many balls in the air and can’t juggle it just now…Jot it down.