Stephen King kept a notebook entry from 1973 that became Under the Dome. Drake uses a private phone notepad for words and phrases that end up in his lyrics. Both filter ideas by writing them down, keeping what sticks and letting the rest fade.
People will say, "Do you keep a notebook?" And the answer is, I think a writer's notebook is the best way in the world to immortalize bad ideas. My idea about a good idea is one that sticks around and sticks around and sticks around. It's like, to me, it's like If you were to put breadcrumbs in a strainer and shake it, which is what the passage of time is for me, it's like shaking a strainer. All this stuff that's not very big and not very important just kind of dissolves and falls out. But the good stuff stays. The big pieces stay. I had the idea for "Under the Dome" when I was teaching high school back in 1973. And it was just too big for me. And I was too young for it. And I wrote about 25, 26 pages and put it away. There's a scene at the beginning of this book where this woodchuck gets cut in half when this dome comes down over this town. I had written that part when I was in my early 20s and just sort of recreated it from memory when I wrote the book. So the good stuff stays.
So my thing is like, usually when I'm in my phone, you know, it's because you said something or you said something or someone said something that's prompted me to be like, oh, I got to write that down. It doesn't even have to rhyme, you know, right away. It doesn't have to be, you know, a thought, you know, it doesn't have to be a bar. It just can be like something you said. Like, even like, I think the last thing I wrote down was like someone last night was like, man, I feel like I've become a recluse. And I was like, man, recluse, that's such a great word. I love that word. And I just write down, I write down like use the word recluse, you know, somewhere. So if you hear recluse in a rap, it's because someone said it.
Someone said it.
Right, so it's just like those type of things. I mean, I keep a constant notepad of just ideas, play-by-play. If you read through that notepad, you could really see where my mind is at, where my life is at. But no one is allowed to read through that notepad.
My intention with this video was to spread understanding, not fighting. I want you to see that it's not one point of view or the other. You can pull and learn from both, especially the one that you don't immediately resonate with. Embrace the genius of the and.
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