Tips to find creativity # 10: Keep a note of all your ideas, even if they aren't fleshed out

Have you ever had an amazing idea but forgot about it because you didn't write it down? I know I have. Many creative people face this issue. It's a simple problem with an easy solution, yet it still happens. Even when it happens over and over again, it's like some of us don't learn our lessons. And one thing that has worked for me in regards to keeping track of my ideas, is to keep a note of all of them, no matter how little or big they are.

Now, I know that some people find it to be a bit tedious to write down even the simplest ideas. Thoughts like "Ah, but this won't matter." or "If I forget then it wasn't relevant enough" seem quite prominent. However, it is a sentiment I disagree with. In my opinion, any and all ideas are what keeps one's creativity going. Even if you don't know how or where an idea can fit in, it's still important to keep mind of it. Your creativity created it for a reason, even if at the time, you can't see why.

This has happened to me several times throughout my life. There have been times where I have told someone else an amazing idea that occurred to me without writing it down, and then, months later, I find myself trying to recall the overall idea, with no luck. It's something that, to this day, I still regret as I try to remember details that have already been forgotten. And because of these feelings, I decided to make a change. As I've mentioned in a previous blog post, I created a server on Discord to manage my ideas. The different channels have done wonders in throwing down even the smallest of ideas for projects, and it's become incredibly useful for when I decide to finally work on that project just to realize I have more ideas than I thought I did, because I wrote down all my ideas. This helps with not only finding my creativity when I can sometimes be running on empty, but it also helps me find motivation to work on that project, seeing as I have so many different ideas for it.

Now, if you're having difficulty coming up with different ideas that one could write down, don't worry. Here I'll give you some things I write down for my projects (things that may hit me in the moment):

1. The appearance of characters

2. A song that could fit a plot point or an aesthetic

3. A plot twist

4. A name of a place

5. An idea to tie two scenes together

6. Fun facts about a character

   
   

And these are just some of the top of my head. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the beauty of creativity is that it is different for every single person. If there is a detail of your creative project that you think of and want to remember, go ahead and write it down. And it doesn't need to be on a Discord Server like I do. You can have a notebook where you write down ideas, on the notes section of your phone, on a chat with yourself, anything you can look back to when you need help is good.

So dear readers, if you're having difficulty keeping your creativity, make sure to write down your ideas, no matter how small they are. You never know when looking at the ideas if you'll find some way to put them together, and I am sure your future self will thank you for keeping track!

Stay tuned for the next creativity finding tip!

-Ruby Rose