Inspiration can come from anywhere at any time. There are tons of stories out there where writers have described being inspired by a dream they had (I’m looking at you Stephanie Meyer), a book they’ve read, or an experience they went through. For example, Suzzanne Collins was flipping between reality shows and coverage of the Iraq war on TV when she got the inciting idea for her book The Hunger Games. Silvia Moreno-Garcia took inspiration from a real town in Mexico, Real Del Monte, for the setting of her novel Mexican Gothic. That is why as a writer, you should consider lugging around a journal everywhere you go.

Whenever I feel moved by something, be it a line from a book, a scene from a horror movie, or a random thought in the shower, I take note of it in one of two places–the OneNote app on my phone or the journal in my backpack. Does this mean that everything I take note of is going to be included in a story. No. I’ll be the first to admit that not every thought I have for a story is a good one. In fact, a lot of them are trash. But in case I ever do come across a golden nugget, it’s nice to have it easily accessible.

There are so many tools out there for note taking. If you are an old soul, break out the pen and paper. Find a note book that is easily portable and that you enjoy caring around with you. If you are a 21st century girly like me, use an app on your phone. There are so many note taking apps…

• Google Keep
• Notion
• Evernote
• OneNote
• The default notes app on your phone

Try a few out and see which works for you. Personally I like using OneNote. It’s free, has great customization tools, and syncs seamlessly with multiple devices. On it, you can take pictures, create voice recordings, and convert speech to text. A lot of other note taking apps have similar features, but I just keep coming back to One Note. I will add here that it can be easy to get caught up in all the features a note taking app has, but the key thing is just to get started collecting those ideas in one place.

If you are looking for some good advice on note taking, my suggestion is to check out the book Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte. He talks about this subject in length and is, in my opinion, the leading expert on the matter.

Tell me, have you been keeping track of your ideas. If so, what do you use? Let me know in the comments.