Never too many notebooks...or Bath Crayons.

My husband and I recently attended a "Q&A / Meet the Authors" night at our local library with three prominent science fiction writers.  Really very interesting!  They had a full audience, and I was grateful to have gotten there in time for actual seats.  There was a library staff member there to moderate the discussion, and attendees took turns asking questions about the writing/publishing experience.

I'm not a writer, and although in years past I thought I wanted to be one, it's really not something I'm working towards right now.  But I am a designer, and in many respects, it is a similar process.  Dream it up, work it out, get it on paper and sell it.  One of the biggest hurdles I deal with is capturing my ideas.  I simply can't knit, chart, draw or create as fast as ideas come to me.  And so, I asked the panel what they do when the creative flow hits them hard and fast.  For a second, they looked at me like I was the next alien they'd be writing about.  Then the panel each took turns expressing that intense creative flow was a gift, and that you need to do everything you can to capture it when it comes, and that you can NEVER have too many notebooks.  One author went on to express just how many notebooks they have, and where all they have them stashed for that perfect moment of creative flow and capture.

I have notebooks.  I love notebooks.  I'm sort of an extreme perfectionist and have that whole "my notebooks should be neat and orderly" disorder.  You know what I mean... indexed, no mistakes, neat and clean.  You're laughing or agreeing.  Yes, I see the brilliance flaw in my ways, so I'm trying to make amends.  I started by designating the existing notebooks.  Small blue one - Ravelry HPKCHC.  Giant green one - pattern writing, impromptu concept sketching.  Black grid notepad - duh, charting.  Okay, done.

Nope, not enough.  I get design ideas at work, in my car, in bed, and more often than anywhere else, my shower.  So I went to the craft store and picked out three of those little $1 journals in three distinctly, can't confuse them and they won't blend into the clutter designs.  I'll be putting one in the car, taking one to work, and leaving one in the bedroom.  As for the shower...

I used to have these awesome soap crayons.  They were awesome.  See, I do website design too, and sometimes layout designs come to me at weird times too (usually the shower) so with these bath crayons, I'd just draw on the way when the idea struck, finish my washing, dry off and transfer the idea to wherever it belonged.  I haven't had a set of bath crayons in ages.  I looked for them, but I can only seem to find them online.  It being time to start thinking of Christmas gifts, I figure now is the perfect time to let the Universe know I'd love another set.  And yes, telling the Universe I want them may result in multiples, but like notebooks, you can never have too many soap crayons.

And if the Universe wants to send me more cool notebooks too... well yeah, they won't go to waste!