The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself. Speech conquers thought, but writing commands it.
I've experienced this many times. An idea comes to mind, but I don't write it down for quite some time, maybe for months. I rarely trust notes. Generally if I make a note of something, I'm never going to expand on that note. Outlines and notes are for after a piece of writing is already half-formed, for when something has already been tested.
3 comments:
an interesting quote. does he mean that you can forget the idea and have it crop up again later, and that this new iteration of the idea will be improved, or does he mean that you've stayed conscious of it and after its gestation it finally would benefit from being written down? although he doesn't say 'improved', he says 'matured'; the two are definitely not one and the same (even though it's implied) in my experience! i've definitely experienced what he's talking about, but evidently in a different way to you, at least, only because i don't consider writing notes to actually be 'writing something down'. at the moment i'm writing down any and all ideas as soon as they crop up. i've forgotten too many after a few hours or a few days to let myself not write things down anymore. i don't think this conquers the thought, either; i don't find myself restricted by the thought having been written down, and very often the idea that i first wrote down in shorthand as a reminder will still continue to evolve and develop in my mind ('gestation' as i so 'aptly' put it), this whole process would often never occur if i had not written it down, instead fading off into disinterest (because i also often find my ideas stagnate if i leave them in my head completely, as if i'm too busy clutching onto the memory to grow it) or just getting forgotten. this would all depend, of course, on the nature of the notes. maybe your notes are more verbose than mine; for myself often a single word is kept to trigger a wide range of memories that i've associated with it. and considering that other sentence i just wrote, maybe this entire paragraph has been written over something as completely mundane as semantics!
having said that, there are plenty of ideas, and some of my best, that i never wrote down for the longest times, and which kept recurring in my head after periods of occasionally being forgotten, coming out differently every time (though not necessarily because the idea had changed, so much as because i had changed). but of course, i can't only give attention to my best ideas, that would be stupid. and besides, not all my best ideas were like that! some were pretty bad ideas at first, and only got better later on. which is why i don't feel comfortable neglecting the poor things.
'the poor things' referring to my bad ideas, that is. excuse the poor grammar
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