I had a completely different topic for today. That’s all I had. The topic. I wrote one sentence and then I went blank. It’s a good topic, but for some reason, the inspiration is not coming today so I won’t force it.  

Some ideas need to marinate. For a complex problem, the brain needs to work in the background for a while. I know I won’t lose the idea because this has happened before. I don’t know how to explain it, but when the idea is ready I will know. I get this pressing urge to write and my fingers can’t move fast enough to get it out. It’s almost scary how easily it comes out. Maybe this is the “flow” state people talk about. 

When I struggle with writing, it’s usually because I’m working on half-baked ideas that aren’t ready for primetime. 

That’s the thing about a great band. You give us a song half-baked and we cook it. –Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards

Now, some people say that writing is their way of thinking and working out the ideas. Great for them, but that doesn’t work for me. I need to do a lot of the prework mentally. Perhaps a better way to say it is I need my brain to work on it for  a while. I don’t feel like I’m doing much of the work consciously until I hit the keys

What if the idea never returns? Well, maybe it wasn’t that great of an idea. Maybe it will return in the future. I’m not worried about that. I don’t have a shortage of ideas. Where do I get all those ideas? That is a topic for another post.