Ideas can present themselves at any time so be prepared to grasp them - Ian McMillan

Right, it’s time to write my Yorkshire Post column, even though I’m nowhere near my laptop and in fact I’m sitting on a bench soaking up some evening sun.
Sometimes ideas appear and you think they’re going to be gold cup winners and end up being also-rans, says Ian. (YPN).Sometimes ideas appear and you think they’re going to be gold cup winners and end up being also-rans, says Ian. (YPN).
Sometimes ideas appear and you think they’re going to be gold cup winners and end up being also-rans, says Ian. (YPN).

I know, though, that early tomorrow morning I’ll want to actually get the words down on to my screen (and then get them up again and then get them down again) but before I do that I need to have an idea and I need to write that idea down in my notebook.

The generation of ideas is something I’ve got used to doing over the years but it never gets any easier; sometimes something will happen or I’ll overhear something and I’ll think ‘‘Ah, there’s a subject for a column!’’ and I’ll write the idea down and Bob, as they say, is your Uncle.

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Sometimes, though, the generation of ideas is like what’s happening now: I’ve been on my evening stroll and pounded my brain to come up with an idea for a column.

This pounding of the brain isn’t a literal head-slapping because, for one thing, that would look daft as I strolled along; no, the brain pounding is simply letting a word, any word, pop into my head, and see if anything appears to pop up next to it.

So, for example, I could say the word ‘‘umbrella’’ to myself. Maybe the word ‘‘broken’’ would unfurl itself next to the umbrella. Then I’d see a picture of a broken umbrella maybe lying in a ditch after a heavy storm.

Then I’d ask myself what the smashed umbrella looked like and my simile-hungry brain would say that it resembled a spider’s web. And the idea would develop from there. Or not, of course.

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Sometimes ideas appear and you think they’re going to be gold cup winners and end up being also-rans or, worse, non-starters.

Let’s assume I’ve got the idea and think it’s a good one that I can use to generate the sentences and paragraphs needed for a column. I sit on the bench and fish my notebook out of my pocket and write a couple of words in it and, just to make sure, I text myself the idea too.

I don’t really need to do both things but the more I can remind myself of the idea the more the idea will begin to germinate.

Then, as I walk home, I picture the finished column as it will look on my screen and, perhaps more importantly, how it will look in the pages of this magazine.

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This is very useful to me because it forces me to write the piece. I let the idea sit in the notebook and on my phone and then I say the idea to myself a few times before I go to bed because while I’m asleep the idea will begin to grow into sequential words that start to make sense; not sentences exactly, not yet, but almost.

The next day I’ll get up early and the idea will have blossomed overnight. Now for the heard part: time to actually get the words to dance in public.

To the keyboard, McMillan!

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