I don’t really remember where I was, but I was somewhere where I didn’t have control of the television. I know this because Fox News was on. The anchors on screen were breaking a new scandalous story that wasn’t new or scandalous: poor people were eating. They weren’t eating gruel, as the newscasters apparently deemed appropriate. They were eating good food - like normal people. Steak, even lobster.
The nerve.
I was filled with the same revulsion and anger that I always had when I saw stories like this. Not at the poor people who dared eat food that gave them pleasure, but at these classist, racist, hate-filled outrage sellers in media who thought that these stories were newsworthy. I also felt the remnants of shame that had followed me throughout my impoverished upbringing and haunted my adulthood.
I needed to write about it.
I wasn’t, obviously, in a place to write right then- in this space that thought that Fox News was appropriate for public infotainment - so I wrote my idea down on my phone for later. I would write about it soon.
“Soon” turned into about two years.
When I did write the piece it flowed out of me like I was still in the moment. The essay was a pretty great one. Looking at it now, six years later, I can see that it’s still very good. It is clear, it is effective, and it is compelling. It communicated the thoughts and emotions that I had the day - two years before the piece had been written - when I’d seen that loathsome news story and had decided I needed to write about it. The piece is still one that I get emails about to this day.
About a year later I was driving around running errands when I got a call from an editor. She wanted my commentary on a then-current celebrity scandal that touched on issues of race and gender. I was fired up with a hot idea. I told the editor all about the angle I’d want to take. She loved it.
“When can you get a piece to me?” she asked.
“Tonight!” I answered.
At a stoplight I quickly jotted down a title for my idea, then I finished my errands and headed home to write.
When I got home and sat at my laptop, it felt as though somehow my brain had been wiped clean. I could remember little more of my conversation with the editor other than the clear impression that the idea that I had was brilliant, we were both very excited about it, and it was due that evening.
I looked at my notes. There were words. Words that basically reminded me that I was going to comment on a particular current event. That was all. It was like I had found a cryptic clue at a murder scene that was obviously written in code for someone else - but in this case the body laying on the ground wasn’t a stranger, it was this much-needed commission.
So why is it that I was able to see clearly and effectively execute a writing idea two years after the fact in one instance, and not be able to follow through on a writing idea literally an hour after inspiration had struck in another?
Here is what I came to understand was the big difference I had in writing prompts that turned to essays, and writing prompts that became just another one of life’s cruel mysteries: how I wrote my idea down.
Oh man, I really feel like I built that up a bit too much for an answer so obvious. But let me elaborate:
In the second instance, the one where I really struggled to recapture my idea and inspiration (I actually ended up having to call the editor back and ask her to go over the conversation with me again - sooooo embarrassing), I wrote down the title of my idea. You know, like if you were going to write an essay about an aspect of capitalism that you feel isn’t discussed a lot so you write down “my capitalism thoughts.”
The problem here would be: I have a lot of capitalism thoughts (as I’m sure any loyal readers here have likely figured out). Ok, so we could be more specific. I could quickly jot down the main “capitalism thought” that I wanted to write about. Still, if any time passes between that initial inspiration and writing my actual essay, I’m going to have trouble remembering why that capitalism thought was so important and in what context I wanted to write about it. If I wrote the piece without figuring it out, I would run the risk of the piece sounding like a wikipedia entry on my capitalism thought. The piece wouldn’t be effective or interesting, and I’d probably have a hard time even understanding why.
So what did I write down on my phone in the first instance that allowed me to write an effective and present piece, two years after inspiration struck?
“Boston Cream Pie.”
That’s it. I’m not joking. That’s all that was in the notes in my phone. Boston Cream Pie. Every time I’d look at my notes to get some bit of information I stored there, I’d look at that note and think to myself, “I really need to write that essay one day.”
Finally one day, when I needed to turn in an essay - any essay - and I was struggling to come up with new ideas, I decided it was time. I opened up my notes, read “Boston Cream Pie” and started writing.
Why was that such an effective note for me? Well, if you read the essay, I think that a lot of that is immediately clear. Basically, the moment that I saw that news report on the television, and the familiar anger and shame hit me, the first image that came to my head was Boston Cream Pie. The memory, and all of the emotions that came with it, flooded my heart and my head. And I needed people to understand. I needed people to understand that poor people are human beings. I needed my childhood self to understand.
So I wrote down Boston Cream Pie. And every time I looked at those words in my phone I was right back at the same place - staring up at a television desperately needing people to understand.
It was so effective that for years now, people who write me to thank me for writing the essay will refer to it as the “Boston cream pie piece” even though that’s not the title at all.
If you’ve been hanging in here through all of this and you’re like, “ok Ijeoma, but what’s the point?” well, the point is this: write down your inspiration, not your title.
Years ago, when my younger son was much younger, he asked me how my writing was going and I told him that I was feeling a bit stuck. I was having trouble getting my ideas down on the page.
He looked at me like I was being utterly ridiculous and said, “Mom, it’s easy. Just write down the words that are in your head.”
Oh, if only, sweet child. But we don’t think in words. We don’t feel in words. We don’t remember in words. At least not wholly. Narrative writing - fiction or non-fiction - is the perhaps the most difficult act of translation I can imagine. You are taking the words in a moment and writing them down, but also the smells, the sounds, that buzzing in the back of your head, clenched and unclenched fists, the pit in your stomach, the flutter in your heart, the hitch in your breath, the way she looked at you, the way you pushed the toe of your shoe in the dirt as you talked, the orange and yellow and purple of it all - you are taking all of that and writing a narrative that is supposed to communicate a story or a compelling point.
How do summarize that with a title that will inspire you to be able to recall and write all of that a year or even an hour later? I can’t. And I’m a damn good writer.
This is why I say to write down your inspiration. If you have a clear phrase or word that puts you right back in your inspiration, like “Boston Cream Pie,” write that down. If you aren’t so lucky - and I’m usually not - write down the situation surrounding the inspiration that struck you.
Going back to that capitalism essay: Yes, you want to write those thoughts on capitalism. So put down “thoughts on capitalism.” But then add more. What were you reading when that idea struck? Who were you talking to? Where were you? What was the sentence that you heard at the moment you said, “this is what I want to write?” What were you eating? Write down whatever surrounded your inspiration so that you feel like if you needed to create that moment in your head, you could.
When you write down your inspiration instead of your title you are recording, not only what you want to write, but why you want to write it. You are recording why this matters to you. You are recording why it might matter to others. You are recording what you hope you will accomplish with your words. Not in multiple paragraphs, but in just enough words to put you back in the space you were in when this was all so clear to you.
This will help you when you sit down to write. It will get you past those first few tough sentences. It will also help you as you get further into your work or even into the editing process - when we can easily get distracted by competing ideas and information that all want to be in a piece - by giving you a touchpoint to reach back to to ensure that your piece is still accomplishing its goals.
This has been my method of writing down inspiration for years now and it has never failed me. When I neglect to write down my inspiration and opt for a quick title instead, I am still likely to feel lost the moment I sit down to write. I’m actually probably more likely to be lost these days, as the amount of writing obligations on my plate have increased a lot since the days of Boston Cream Pie and it’s very hard for me to keep track of what day it is, let alone which of the ideas whirring around in my head I want to write.
This method of keeping writing ideas are also very helpful when pitching. Because what you’re trying to preserve - the what, why, and how of it all - is exactly what you need to be able to describe to an editor in order to inspire them to accept your pitch, publish your piece, and pay you your money.
So that’s my tip for the day - a simple tip somehow stretched into a billion words: write down your inspiration, not your title.
Give it a try and let me know how it works for you! I hope that it will help you in translating the hard and wonderful work that is translating the jumbly mess that is in our brains to words on a page.
I’ve made jumbly a word now, because it’s perfect.
Gawd, I love writing.
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Boston Cream Pie
Damn I miss The Establishment. Such a great page, it was.
Great idea for recapturing the spark for inspiration. Thanks!
I read the Boston cream pie essay after this was in my email and man oh man. You've moved me so much today, you don't even know.