Archives and Forgotten Treasures

Would You Pick Up This Book to Read?   

"The story I tell is not one of happiness, neither is it one of sadness.  It is simply a tale of four people bound together by one common thread—a bond powerful enough to bind them together, strong enough to break them, and cruel enough to do both at once.

          It is my story. It is only fitting that I be the one to tell it, in all its brutal majesty. "

Make you want to read more?

Me, too!!

Here's the problem. 

I came across this wonderful intro in an old archived writing file saved on a hard drive.  I have no idea what the story is, or was going to be, I only know that I penned this sometime in 2006. It has lain, forgotten, on a virtual shelf gathering aether-dust until now.

Man, that's frustrating!

The good news is that now I have found it again, and it sparks something for me! I don't remember what the story was going to be all those years ago, but I'm having inklings of what it will become now.

This is why I love archives: whether it be electronic, or old fashioned paper notebooks (which I also have at least a dozen of laying around). They are the figurative nooks and corners where ideas are swept off to, forgotten and left alone until someone notices them again, fishes them out, dusts them off and uses them to some good purpose. Leafing through a writing archive, mine or someone else's, is like finding buried treasure - just as exciting and just as rich!

So my advice to fellow writers today is simply this: Keep an archive, be it whatever sort of file, notebook, or other thing that you wish. Fill it with these bits of ideas, photos, anything that you find sparks your imagination. Keep it always, even when you don't think there's anything worth keeping. You never know what bit of coal might become a jewel, when given time!

PS: If you've never heard of it, or looked at it - www.pinterest.com is a wonderful electronic way to hoard and save ideas from all over the internet. I have a board for writing, and I use it regularly to archive ideas, quotes, photos and everything. I even have a secret board that I use to cast my characters with the appropriate photos. Be careful though, once you start, it's highly addictive!