Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

We have a tradition in my house that may sound a little bizarre. Every so often, as the need arises, we make what is affectionately known as “refrigerator stew”. Often, I freeze the leftover bits of meals for just such an occasion. We have a farm, so when I am good and the weather is cooperative, we have an abundance of fresh produce, meat or nuts, depending on the season. All that gets eaten, or canned for later, but because we have put so much effort into bringing it to the table, I really hate to see anything go to waste. So, if there’s not enough peas left for a serving at the end of the meal, they find themselves bagged up in the freezer awaiting stew night.

I’m not suggesting that every author run out and plant a giant garden, but essentially that’s what our minds are doing all the time. Snippets of conversation, ideas that are good but aren’t really attached to anything, bits of old stories, and encounters with interesting characters like to clog up our minds.

Don’t waste them.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is famous for a lot of things, among them advising Watson that the mind is like an attic, and one shouldn’t store anything there that isn’t useful. That is not to say, however, that things shouldn’t be stored. Personally, I keep both physical files and electronic folders filled with these snippets. Believe me, they do come in handy.

It might be more efficient, from a space standpoint, to scan in the paper articles that I store. For me, working mainly off of a laptop, I find it easier to keep a set of hanging files in my desk, loosely arranged by topic. Just like stuffing something in the freezer for later use, it doesn’t do you a damn bit of good if you can’t find it later. I use the same kind of topics on folders on my desktop. I know, ‘loose topics’ isn’t a very specific explanation, but getting too specific is a waste of my time when it comes to topics.

Right now, for example, I have a folder for ghost stories, that includes photos of supposedly haunted places, bits of myth, hoaxes, and the like. Other topics I have filed are New Physics (pretty much anything with quarks, antimatter, or interstellar travel), Archaeology, Psychology, Culture, Oriental History, and my favorite, the Miscellaneous file.

Miscellaneous is everything that can’t be fit anywhere else, but that I don’t want to lose. You know, the mock conversation that’s been playing in your head, or the scene that is really great, but just doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. I’ve been known to throw snatches of dreams in here, as well as the most painful short personal observations.

If you’re cooking a meal, or ordering one in a restaurant, it often isn’t the base part of the meal that really makes it good. After all, pasta, beef and chicken are pretty mundane. What attracts us are the things that make the meal special: roasted garlic, pine nuts, asiago cheese.

When you’re working on something, the main files can be like the chicken or pasta you’re basing the meal around, and believe me, it is still important to get those things right. But the bits that really make a piece special are probably either sitting in your miscellaneous file or cluttering up your mind, because those are the things that make your writing unique. They are your thoughts, your ideas, and because they are yours, people won’t find them anywhere else.

Cheers,

Michelle