Writing – The Lost Ones

 

I have ideas for stories and novels that will sell millions of copies. They will set me financially for life. Based on those works, I will win awards and be invited to speak around the world.

There’s only one problem.

I can’t remember any of them.

Not one. Not any detail of them. Not even a broad outline of the idea. Sometimes there’s a note with a tantalizing but utterly opaque phrase or reference. These are the worst.  There was something there that excited me so much that I wrote this phrase down.  I knew that just a word would bring all back to me because this word is the perfect summation of it all.  There’s one on my desk as I write this – “Peacemaker”.  That’s all it says.  I have no idea what story goes with it.  The note above it I remember perfectly.

But this other one?  Whatever it was is gone.

They are the lost ones.

The worst part is knowing that I’ve lost them. I had this idea. I remember being excited about it, I could see how to make it grow. But I was doing something else when it revealed itself to me. Driving, working, falling asleep. There was no time or ability to write myself a note (which doesn’t always help) but I’m sure I’ll remember it until I can. Sometimes I do. But lots of things will push their way to the counter of my mind, demanding to be served immediately. Now. NOW! The thread of that new idea is carried away, buried in a crush of many voices and many demands. Until all I’m left with is the vague memory of… something. A might have been. A wisp, a vapor, a pale phantasm so ethereal that I can barely see its outline. Somehow that tiny piece of memory makes it worse. Better that I should be left with nothing rather than unfocused, blurry remembrance of… something.

There’s no point in trying to “track it down”. It will either resurface on its own or be gone forever. The next time I will try to make the memory permanent. To grasp it firmly so I can place it in a place where it will stay.

But I know it is part of the tragedy of writing. To know that more are coming.

More of the Lost Ones.

Peace

JD