Litrus 6

I've recently begun thinking more green about my writing. What this means is that I save and recycle. I have always had bits of inspiration pop into my head: lines of poetry; concepts for stories; words and phrases that intrigue me (writers are a strange breed. The other day, I had the phrase "pineapple upside-down cake" pop unbidden into my mind); clever ideas for T-shirts. Sometimes I would write these down and other times I would just chuck them in my mental "That's a good idea" file. Half the time I then lost these brainchildren. I would eventually throw away the receipt or napkin on which they were scribbled or my overloaded brain would tuck them in the dusty “maybe someday” drawer. The truth is that I had a real bird-in-the-bush attitude. Why focus on a scrap of an idea when there was real work to be done?

However, I have come to the conclusion that almost every idea has its proper time and place. Just as painters don't throw away a tube of oil paint just because they are not using that hue in a current painting, writers should not haphazardly discard words, lines and paragraphs that might shine in a future project. Blogging has helped me the most in reaching this deduction. Blogs are by nature variable bursts of thought. If ever there were a place to publish a thought that is half-baked, it is in a blog entry. I began with a MySpace blog and moved onto a subscription site, then a pay-per-click writers’ community. Seeing my ideas up in real-time helped remove them from the mental rubbish category in which I had placed them.

I have posted poems on MySpace and then moved them onto pay-per-click sites. I maintain a blog dedicated to my very short poems and tending my bit of Internet fame keeps me patient while I work on more long-term projects. And I've found places for the phrases that have found me: My first album is called "Nicotine Angel" and I've written a short poem using the line "a little sweaty and alive." Maybe I'll write a longer one. I suggest you, too, stop throwing away the scratch paper riddled with doodles, words, lines and brainstorms. And make sure you do write them down. Writing is like a bird's nest. When complete, it is charming and serviceable. However, you'd be surprised to see what kind of "junk" goes into making a bird's nest—mud, twigs and even trash.

While driving, I often risk life and limb by scribbling on the paper detritus that fills my car. You might want to carry a small voice recorder instead for when your creative muse strikes; you can listen to the words later and write them down. I have tons of my paper building blocks to writing stored in a basket I go through from time to time. You might want to make things neater by transcribing your ideas onto computer. Just make sure you back your ideas up on a CD because computers have been known to crash. Now here's the funny part. Once you begin to save more of your writing, and to show greater respect for the process, you begin to write more and better. First of all, you're not always starting from zero whenever you sit down to write. This article is based on these words alone: "Write something about saving your writing."

My next poem may be called "Pineapple upside-down cake," or maybe I'll just order some in a restaurant. And your blog entries in which you rage against the political machine or detail the trials and triumphs of raising your children might just turn into a newspaper column or a book. Try to think of that mysterious part of you from which your writing springs as a person. If you keep telling a friend that what he or she says is no good, silly, impractical, half-baked or a waste of time, pretty soon your friend's going to stop talking to you. Show some respect for your creative process by saying this instead: "That's a great thought. I'm going to write this down and see if I can use it somewhere. I bet I can." With some encouragement, your creative spark will talk some more. —Sarah Torribio.

Blank page to inspiration: The writer's odyssey