Write It Down

I mentioned in my last post about constantly having ideas, which if I'm not careful quickly dissapear without trace into the void that is my brain.

For that very reason, I usually carry some kind of notebook and a pen around with me. The size of which depends on what I'm doing and where I'm going.
Of course, these days a mobile phone can be very useful for the same purpose. So I also find myself jotting down 'notes', or recording voice memo's into the phone. The wonders of modern technology eh?

I've been doing this for a few years now and it's amazing how much 'stuff' you can commit to paper, or phone, over time. I am currently well into my second bigger notebook, as well as still using my smaller version too.

After all, you never know when inspiration may strike and, as often happens, it can hit at the most unlikely and inappropriate moments. So having a means of making a note about that great world changing idea, or thought, is very useful

I sometimes find that, when making those notes, they can almost turn into a kind of blog post as the idea grows and expands before your eyes and your pen is frantically trying to keep up with your thought process. In fact I've been known to fill up a whole sheet of A4 paper with scribbling, before transferring the salient points to the 'proper' notebook.

(I've just noticed that I actually have another four notebooks, with loads of video ideas in them, sitting just to the side of me on my computer desk. I'd forgotten all about them, as they are several years old now and are a bit of a leftover from the days when I used to make several YouTube videos a week. I know what I'm going to be doing after finishing writing this post....)

Looking back through those books can make very interesting reading (see above).
I have notes about ideas for long abandoned schemes, websites, and apps, quotes I've heard, or read, titles of books to be read, or music to be listened to and much more.
The original ideas for both the Pierless Music website/service and The Stinger magazine can be found within those pages for example.

Keeping those old notebooks for future reference can be very rewarding too, as you never know when one of those abandoned ideas may be resurrected. Sometimes ideas are written down that you know you don't have the time for, or can commit the effort to, at that moment. So the books become a kind of storage area, ready to be accessed when the time is right.

In fact, that exact thing happened to me yesterday.
I had a meeting with somebody and during the course of the discussion I mentioned an idea I'd had a year or so ago. The idea was favourably received and the upshot of this is that I'm now going to look again into the possibilities of getting that idea off the ground, literally.
When I originally jotted that idea down, I didn't really think it was viable, rather more of a pie in the sky scheme. I did some intial research and then turned the page and went onto something else.

I was reminded of another, partly forgotten, scheme recently as well. It's one of those that I don't have the time to take any further right now, but at least all the notes and original thoughts are still there, waiting to be acted upon at some time, maybe.

So you never know. And if there's a lesson to be learned here it's that jotting those ideas, schemes and thoughts down may seem like a waste of time, and a bit of hassle, but you just never know when they may come in handy. And if you don't write them down, you can be sure that you'd never remember them again.

I know I'm very pleased that I've taken the time and made the effort to do just that over the years.

How about you?

Ideas Of A Solitary Walker.

Walking often leads to ideas. Here i'm talking about a few.

Vinyl Junkie blog: http://vinyljunkie58.blogspot.co.uk/

A beach vlog.

I Published A Book!

I have just published an eBook on Amazon & it is available for Kindle users.

It can be bought on all Amazon sites, including:
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Moose-Musings-ebook/dp/B006RXBRTC/
USA: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006RXBRTC

Otherwise, just search for "Moose Musings", the name of the book.

I Did It.

Celebrating a month of uploading content every day.

Well done to all those who have completed their own challenge during November.

 DugalWest's poem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAzS5Nt_oHw

Pedants R Us.

Ok, so the title of this blog post is a little misleading. Because i'm not really that much of a pedant, honest.

In fact, i sometimes get a little annoyed with "The grammar police" who seem to patrol the Internet in search of misplaced punctuation marks, apostrophes in the wrong place, or bad grammar.
As long as the meaning of what the person is saying isn't lost, does it really matter that much and is it worth getting all worked up over? Well, obviously it is for some people, but you know what i mean.

Yes, badly used grammar and punctuation can have an effect.
A great example of this is provided on the cover, which is as far as i've ever got, of "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss. A book all about grammar and bad punctuation.

Here it is, in case you've never seen, or heard it before:
"A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
'Well, I'm a panda,' he says, at the door. 'Look it up.'
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves".

But, i've never, yet, seen a panda with a gun and until i do i'll try not to lose any sleep over what i'm sure in all cases are honest mistakes.
As i heard somebody, quite rightly, point out the other day. Language is evolving all the time and has always done so. That's the main reason many people find the works of Shakespeare and Dickens etc so hard to get on with.

Thankfully, we don't still speak the English language in the same way that Shakespeare did. Although some foreigners probably think we do! Proof, if it were needed, that language alters over time.

New words are added to the Oxford English Dictionary every year.
Just think how language has changed over your own lifetime, especially in the past twenty years. Text speak and the language of the Internet have altered things forever, whether we like it, or not.

Maybe, that's the problem? People are always harking back to those bygone days when everybody spoke the "Queens English", spoke in an upper class accent and wore a tie and a hat.

But, the English language is a mish mash of words borrowed, or corrupted from foreign languages. You only have to see the amount of supposedly English words which are actually of Indian origin to realise that.

In fact, if you go back far enough, it is thought that English is actually Germanic in origin. A remnant of the time of the Anglo Saxons.
The Norman invasion of 1066 obviously changed things once again, adding a French dimension to "English".

I've even seen a suggestion that at one time punctuation didn't exist.
After all, there is no real punctuation in speech and the written word, especially for the ordinary citizen, didn't really arrive until the invention of the printing press.
Back then people were more worried about having enough to eat, than bothering about anything else

And, maybe, therein lies the problem? People have more time to worry about, what are essentially, trivial matters in the modern, western world..
But, as is always the case, what is trivial for one, will be earth shattering to somebody else.

I certainly know which side of the argument i'm on.

(By the way, this blog post is nothing like the post that i actually intended to write. Things quite often happen like that around here!)

Reading, Writing & Blogging.

A follow up video to "A tipping point for eReaders":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rFv5X...

Thanks for all your comments & response to that video & for inspiring this one.

Your thoughts are welcome, as always.

A woodland vlog.

Books & Reading.

How do you read