Well-meaning friends and relatives have said, "if it’s really that important it will come back to you." But, I know from personal experience that this is hogwash.
Ideas come to me from nowhere I can articulate - literally from out of the blue - at the most inopportune times, like when I am brushing my teeth and can't remember where even one of my five hundred pens could possibly be. But, I continue, despite all the years of contrasting evidence, to attempt to reassure myself that memory will prevail, as I continue brushing my teeth, only to realize moments later that this brilliant idea that I had while brushing and spitting has vanished like dust in the wind.It's not always easy to write one's fleeting thoughts - like when you're driving a car and the end of a paragraph that you've been working on for years finally comes to you, only to be deleted into eternal air all because it's not legal to write and drive at the same time.
Well-meaning friends and relatives have said, "if it's really that important it will come back to you." But, I know from personal experience that this is hogwash. I have lost and not ever retrieved some great ideas, all because I was too lazy to write them down. I've told myself that when the time is right something even better will come to me and at that time I will be prepared to capture this potentially elusive and ever-fleeting composite of prose as I whip out my pen and pad or tape recorder and begin to eternally seal my words of wisdom - at least until my next revision completely obliterates the previous perfection. But, as sure as it's tough to teach an old dog new tricks, I once again find myself searching for the nowhere-to-be-found pen as my brilliant ideas start to fade into neural eternity.
Friends and acquaintances have attempted to supply me with the same earth-shattering idea over the years such as keeping pen and paper by the bedside, so I'll be prepared to capture the magical muse should it decide to startle my slumber. But, for some reason I don't seem to be able to make sure that my nightstand is equipped with the essential props for preventing my potentially fleeting ideas from flying the coup. Resistance may be futile, but I am convinced that my inability to stock my nightstand with pen and paper has more to do with laziness and a false sense of belief in my memory than with stubborness.
Every now and then I make it my business to be organized with pens and notebooks nearby waiting to be utilized when genius strikes. But, for reasons that can never be figured out, the muse refuses to visit me when I am prepared with pen and paper. It's only when there is no pen in sight and the notebooks have evaporated into writer's oblivion that the ideas start to flow. I try with all of my might to retain even a small sliver of the perfect prose that only moments ago flowed with astonishing clarity, but unless I am lucky enough to find a pen and paper or tape recorder, the great moment is but a distant memory never to be retrieved exactly like it was conceived before.
I think I have finally figured out a way to trick the muse so that it does not continue to evade me when I am prepared to capture its arrival. I now keep a pen and paper in various corners of each room, so that a moment's notice when the muse decides to materialize, I have only to run to the nearest pen and paper station to eternally capture the masterpiece that will undoubtedly go through many metamorphoses. But, at least I have managed to transcribe the original words that I believed were no less than perfect at the time they were sent to me by my muse.