Ideas for book 3 have been swirling around like leaves in a whirlwind. After reading your post, I decided to try index cards. Now I’m nailing down those ideas where they’ll stay put. That provides a sense of accomplishment and provides manageable goals. Thinking in terms of cards per day is so much easier than thinking about abstractions such as character development and plot.

Thanks for helping me get started.

I am using index cards for the screenplay I’m writing now and it has been nothing short of miraculous!

Thanks for sharing – I look forward to reading more and joining the group after the holidays.

Later, when I was preparing for an endurance performance, I rented one blank wall in a collective studio space on Adeline Street in Oakland, and I bought myself a huge stack of index cards and pens. I remember staring at the wall, at the pile of index cards and trying to figure out how to use them. I mostly felt like a faker, a pseudo artist who didn’t really know how to go about studio work. I had no real plan. I had hoped the index cards would get me there, even though in my life up to that point, freaking out until the last minute and then pulling something out of “thin air” (not so thin really, but not neatly outlined, that’s for sure).

I ended up looking up words that were evocative to me and related to the theme of the performance, which was called Intake. It helped, but it didn’t get me there as neatly as I had imagined it would. I think I had the notion that the index cards would somehow organize themselves and show me the answers. I know I had the notion that I would suddenly get what that grad student was doing when I finally had my own blank wall and stack of cards.

So, here I am again, facing a stack of proverbial index cards (I haven’t bought any yet, and I did get Scrivener, but since I don’t take my computer with me everywhere, not sure how useful that is. I have actually been tempted to buy another computer just so I can have the tool with me at all times – but I think that might be akin to renting one wall after a trip to the school supplies aisle).

All day long I take mental notes for my index cards, but by the time I have a moment to stop and write, they aren’t there the same as they were in the moment. And, the notes, they are a constant dialog of things I’ve noticed, thoughts I’m having. It’s like a hall of mirrors version of the cloud meditation where you notice your thoughts and send them off in clouds. I notice my thoughts, think about them on index cards, write the way they would appear in my head, try to hold on to them to remember, let them stack up in a pile and then by the end of the day, they are transformed, or different, or scattered.

This happened to me when I was driving across a bridge the other day. I didn’t have any cards with me to write down my thoughts and there was no where to pull over if if I did. I couldn’t figure out how to use the function on my cell phone that lets you leave a message for yourself and so I kept telling myself the idea over and over and over again in order not to forget.

Okay, so there is all that – and the fact that I am writing a memoir. Up until the other day, it’s been all from the inside out. Then in our first BWC writing exercise, I wrote from the outside in, third person about me. That was interesting. How can I use that? How does it relate to the index cards? Shall I start thinking of myself as a character and then notice things that might affect that character’s trajectory?

I really should stop commenting and walk down to Walgreens to peruse the school supplies.