Not A Sound From The Pavement

Sometimes my memory reminds me of a ghost ship.

{Writing advice for this post appears in the last paragraph if you wish to skip the rambling}

Consider the Lyubov Orlova for example; a Russian cruise ship that’s been adrift for nearly a year, with nary a soul aboard (making pirate noises).  It comes and goes.  People see it, then it vanishes in the mists (more pirate noises).  That’s what ghost ships do, but this one’s even better.  Supposedly the Lyubov Orlova carries cannibal rats!  They’re cannibals for two reasons.  First, rats are like rabbits on Viagra when it comes to proliferation rates, and secondly, after a year there’s nothing else to eat on the ship except other rats.

I’m seeing a movie trailer in my brain about a tsunami of bloodthirsty rats hitting a small but moderately populated (think body counts) island in the north Atlantic.  Because it’s a European island the people don’t have guns and they have to fight the rats with cricket bats and bidet pipes.  The hero, played probably by Anthony Hopkins (supporting actress either Julia Louis-Dreyfus or Nicole Kidman) has to find and destroy the King Rat who’s really an evil spirit from Baba Yaga’s hut (Russian folklore and Dungeons & Dragons reference – look it up).

But getting back to my memory…  Yesterday, while driving errands, I had this great idea for a blog post.  It was super awesome and relevant and fascinating and enlightening; just about the best thing since the invention of the rat-trap.  This was the one that would have put me over the top:  fame, fortune, drag racing with Justin Bieber…

It just appeared from nowhere, like great ideas and ghost ships sometimes do.  Magnificent and haunting gloriousness aside, I stored said idea in my memory hole and continued with the errands.  Somewhere, the idea fell out.  A stop at the bank, the grocery store, the gas station, and all was lost.  I couldn’t remember a dalgone thing about it.  Still can’t.  And so, you’re reading this and not something that would cause cascading ululations of life-changing epiphany.

Point being:  writers need to write stuff down so they can remember it later.  Keep a notebook or send yourself an email with all those great ideas.  Of course, don’t do that while driving.  But I really wish I had taken the time to make myself a quick note for future reference.