Always write it down!

I don't know how many times I have been given an amazing idea, character trait, plot twist and instead of running for a pen, I've thought 'Many this is so cool. I'll never forget it.' And then promptly done just that. Nothing is worse then sitting down and realizing what ever bit of brilliance had been floating around in my grey matter has now been reabsorbed and is gone.

Worse thing is I seem to get my best idea while driving long distances. Much harder to write things down while navigating highway traffic at 10 clicks over the speed limit.

Last night I'm laying in bed and my brain sparks. Now I was just about asleep and obviously the alpha waves kicked into high gear, but I was comfortable. It was the last night of march break. I had to be up early today to get the girls to school and then get everything prepared to go bck to work. I didn't want to get up and find a pen. I just wanted to sleep.

The longer I lay there, the more ideas came to me. Then things got really interesting when my mental pictures started taking a very steampunk edge to it all. Still I lay there only now I'm flipping from side to side, blankets on, blankets off. I got up, staggered intot he kitchen and found a pen. Stratched down the basics and then crawled back into bed...and still sleep elluded me. It seems that my subconsious is tired of all my self recriminations over forgetting things and now it is refusing me any sleep until I move my butt. I lay there thinking of more ideas and a couple plot angles, and got up again and added them to the list. By this point it is after 2am and I'm starting to consider the possibility that I might not sleep at all and maybe I should just get up and start writing this story.

Then I fell asleeep. LOL

This morning, I remember it all. Everything I thought of last night and I'm sure it's because I went through the motions of writing it down. Thankfully, because I'd really be beating myself up if I had forgotten any of this and really aren't Mondays bad enough already?