Notebooks and the popcorn effect vs the compost pile

A silly sketch of a crow off one of my notebooks

I’m going travelling soon, which always leads me back to thinking about notebooks (just in case anyone doesn’t know I happen to like to write). Travelling, that is being stuck on an airplane for many hours and being alone in a hotel room, typically gives me plenty of time to write--more time than I get in my day-to-day world. As a result, notebooks become a travel necessity. (on that note, this guy ( http://josenaranja.blogspot.ca/ ) creates the nicest notebooks I’ve ever seen)

Quick mooring diagrams from some field work I did a few years ago that have turned out to be incredibly useful.

Stacks of filled notebooks fill a shelf in my office at home. For me these books are an incubator for ideas that may or may not turn into anything.

While flipping through one of my old notebooks, I found some notes on the popcorn effect for idea generation from a writing podcast I listened to, but sadly, I don't remember exactly which one. The author being interviewed described his idea generation process as throwing a handful of popcorn kernels onto a fire – some will pop and some won't. Basically, not every idea will take off and it’s impossible to predict beforehand. The only path to this occasional success is to keep throwing in handfuls of popcorn kernels.

What the author didn't discuss is where the kernels come from – but, I’ve found a theory for that too (again not originally mine but I don’t remember the source). Like the compost pile in the back corner of my garden, I have a compost pile in the back corner of my brain. It's a pile of information from a wide swath of places – science books, random documentaries, movies, gardening, blogs, chatting with and observing people, and fiction (science fiction, fantasy, historical, modern thrillers and random books I stumble upon or are recommended to me). Plus events from my day-to-day existence.

I let the pile marinade together over time, festering until everything melds together. My subconscious then roots through the dregs of the pile. That's where the kernels of my ideas are. Next step is to throw these kernels on the fire and see what pops.

Tomorrow, while I’m sitting on a plane most of the day, I’ll have plenty of time to capture some of those kernels and store them for future fires.