I have managed to fill one of my writing notebooks. Well, all except for a few spare lines here and there. I have another book ready to go, but I’m still a bit reluctant to leave this one behind. It has travelled with me for the best part of a year, ready to capture stray thoughts and story ideas and the random bits that have been gathered along the way.

As I flick through the pages, I can see my initial thoughts around starting a blog and snippets stuck in from articles in the local paper that caught my eye. This includes a small poem published in an attempt to reconnect with a fleeting encounter:

The Station Bar across the space, a Sunday night’s caprice of fate, a laugh a dance a kiss would seal, my blighted sleep the feelings real. Explorers falls your lift to home, my spirits sag no name no phone, Monday morning Mudgee calls, my perfidy its just reward. If status quo be mine to keep, your eyes your smile your touch of cheek, forever lost and never found, the universe its secret sound.

Did they ever reconnect? Did he/she read the poem tucked into the personal notices and reply? I’d really like to know.

There are notes from books and articles that I’ve read whilst writing blogs with historical elements. There are random titles for story or blog ideas, some ticked off as I’ve written them. Others remain, ready to prompt me in the future. The pages are dotted with words that I have come across and need to look up, as well as questions to myself such as ‘what is pig iron?’  It’s the crude iron formed from a smelting furnace, shaped into rectangle blocks. Old photos of the Blasting Furnace at Lithgow had scores of the blocks.

Song titles feature quite a bit, as do snippets of lyrics. One favourite is ‘I started out with nothin’, I’ve still got most of it left’ by Seasick Steve. It made me laugh out loud when I heard it one night on the local radio station segment called Random Groove.

Instructions are also littered throughout, reminding me to take care of certain writing matters. There are prompts that I’ve read in different places, as well as snippets of conversation that I’ve heard whilst eavesdropping. This may not seem like much but these glimmers often reemerge in short stories or longer pieces. There are also pages when I’ve written an idea out, sketching the rough format for a piece with imagery that is vivid at the time, but may be lost if not recorded somewhere.

Short stories are there, in their entirety or sometimes just the beginning, or some other part if I’m wrestling with wording and need to slow the writing process down. There are sticky notes and dot points. Lots of dot points.

I was thinking of moving the unfinished or incomplete bits over to my new book but I think it would be best to leave it as is, and return to the old book for inspiration when I need it.

How do you keep track of ideas that you gather along the way?

[Photo of one of the many wonderful miniature paintings in the Secret Lane in Lithgow]