From Blank to Brilliant: Getting Good Ideas Out.

Photograph of Women Working at a Bell System Telephone Switchboard

It's been a challenging week, folks. I often live by the motto that "everyday offers a new opportunity for change," and this week I tried my mightiest to remember that saying...and that there is a "transition" or "learning period" that goes with it. If I could have taken a snapshot of the inside of my head it may have resembled something like this picture above.

The early portion of the week I spent organizing my book ideas into some place that would allow me to tap into them easily, without having to flip pages and scan lists or random assortments. So I began to utilize Evernote, which I can access from any of my three devices and which also syncs to the cloud. It took me a little brainstorming to figure out how I wanted to organize tags and "notebooks" in there, but once I did I felt enlightened.

I also started to use the most amazing word processing program: Scrivener. I'm going to use this most of all for what it was intended to be used for...the dreaded DRAFT. What I love about the program so far is that it offers a variety of different ways to get your ideas out and then label and reorganize them over and over again. Right now I have a lot of notes that I'm trying to piece together for one project, so for me this is perfect!

I never have a problem filling in the blank page. My challenge is piecing together multitudes of ideas and words in ways that *click*. I strive for it to be perfect the first time out...and I know (I know!) and I continue to be reminded that that rarely happens. So I'm happy that I now created new places for myself to get messy. I still have a learning-curve with the programs themselves, but patience goes a long way.

Patience, persistence, passion--three wonderful P's needed to get good ideas out. Never mind "brilliant."