(I like “shimmying out of time”… it seems to paint time as a glowing hose tube top our undressing makes wiggle, or a fluorescent hula hoop as captured by a long exposure in a dark room. But really to shimmy out of time might be to shuffle off this mortal coil.)

This reminds me of the conversation we had while driving through snowy rural PA about the difficulty of visualizing descriptions of “standing outside time and seeing it all at once.” Similarly, I have trouble concretizing your concept of a “collective remembering self,” though perhaps it’s the mythic beast you’re trying to trap with your experimental novel structure? What other duties, in your mind, does becoming a human neuron entail, since evidently merely passing stories on to one another isn’t enough?

I write most things directly on the computer, but, weirdly enough, I work best when there are multiple distractions so I’m always getting ideas in class. My school notebooks generally have an average story pages-to-scholary notes pages ratio of five to one.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by paulboccaccio: New blog post: On the Subject of Retaining Ideas http://www.paulboccaccio.com/blog/2010/02/03/on-the-subject-of-retaining-ideas/...

M: yes, precisely; the act of writing an idea down transmutes it from an impression (vivid or fuzzy) to a communicable thought.

I have a notebook for ideas. I rarely look at it, except to add a line or scribble or whatever, but the act of setting the bits down seems to solidify them and carve out a draw for them in my head.

I love process geekery like this because it’s so neat to see what seems to be universal and what is highly individual and it encourages me to create an inventory of the sorry, scattered tools of my own trade.