Last night, feeling pleased with myself, I hit a seam of inspiration and wrote notes as I was on the point of falling asleep. his is what proper writers do. So, two things went right – one, I relaxed and became inspired and two, I had a notebook and pen ready.
Just one problem – I can’t read the notes. At the best of times, as I may have said before, I have trouble reading my own writing. It looks like a lazy worm has escaped from an ink pot and made loops on the page. That’s why I generally write in capitals, even if it does end up looking like a ransom demand.
When I am close to sleep it gets worse. I can’t remember what I was thinking and I definitely can’t read it. I am sure none of my thoughts included the words “blessed treehouse stargazer”, “print out the smell lads” or “listed in retinue meat”. It is, however, possible that some future notes may include them because the three of them offer a range of bizarre possibilities.
So, even before starting to write, I seem to have failed. From this I take the lesson that all late night notes should be written in block capitals.
Who would have thought that reading your own writing would be such a problem? Maybe, in years to come, quercusisms (unintentionally amusing poetry resulting from the inability to read your own scrawl) may join malapropisms, spoonerisms and mondegreens in the list of literary mishaps.
In the meantime, I will learn my lesson and start printing my late night notes – I can’t afford to lose inspiration to poor penmanship.
Oh goodness, you made me laugh. If that upsets you, I apologize. But the story and the comments were well worth the chuckles. I think I have had instances when I could not read my writing, but it’s usually to do with numbers written sloppily. Good luck with future brainstorms!
Thank you. I hope I’m never offended by laughter. 😉
Those are interesting interpretations of your own writing. “Blessed treehouse stargazer” might make an interesting poem. 🙂 I think we have all done similar things. As for me, I make lists and notes, then can’t find them later when I need them. A.K.A. squirrel and nut syndrome. 🙂
Yes, I’ve done that too. Sigh!
Just work on weaving those extracts into a poem
I will try. 🙂
I actually have my phone on the bed table and send my notes to myself in emails. Sometimes the perfect sentence would be waiting on my computer when I started it up the next day.
I can only look at your post in awe. To use my phone I would have to find my glasses and then connect to the internet (I never bothered when I got the phone because I didn’t want emails all day), then type . . .
Let’s just say you are a lot more organised than I am. 🙂
There are times I jot things in my notebook and I really feel like a detective trying to figure out clues
Interesting idea to include in a plot . . . 🙂
😉
Very good. I havre this odd habit of putting my receipts on my desk in front of the computer. When I need to make a note of something, I use the back of a receipt. After a while, when I need to find one of those notes, I shuffle through the receipts to find it. I reread all the other notes and sometimes I wonder what they are for… Like you, though, sometimes I can’t read what they say if I have written them in a hurry. Sometimes old habits don’t better as we age… Thanks for sharing what some of us wouldn’t want to. 🙂 I hope you are doing well.
I’m fine thanks. Your system has echoes of my old telephone number system. I’d make a note of the number and reason and forget the name, or the name and number and forget the reason, or . . .
It was not a good system. :=-)
Well, it wasn’t really a system, to be honest.
‘Print out the smell lads’ seems to be a promising avenue of exploration.
he worrying thing is that I can’t even began to imagine what it means – not so much concerned about the loss to poetry, more about the stae of my writing.
Did small ads come into your mind perhaps.
Julia says it’s unlikely, as very little goes on in my mind. She does not appreciate the inner life of the artist.
Same here with me writing down dreams in the morning…
Glad it’s not just me. I can sympathise with your note-taking problems. In the mornings I can’t even read properly and all I initially saw were squiggles. After my brain was working in the evening I was able to make out some gibberish.