Have you ever had one thing remind you of another? Maybe it's a smell that reminds you of a similar smell from the past. A person who makes you think of another person you know. A line from a poem or story that makes you recall an event that happened to you…. Or it might be seeing something familiar in a brand new way. Maybe it's putting two things together and coming up with something unlike either of the two.
That happens to me frequently. Often, it's an elusive feeling or insight that disappears as quickly as it came. But sometimes it stays long enough to jog an awareness in my brain, and I make notes before I lose it.
Let me give you an example.
I've been familiar with the song "Oh, Freedom" since i was a child. Always loved it, no doubt as much because of what a good singer can do with it musically as because of the meaning behind it.
But one day, over 30 years ago, someone's remark about "freedom in Christ" started the lyrics from "Oh Freedom" playing in my head. "…And before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free…"
An instant later, it popped into my mind that I needed to write a story about freedom, and that it's not, as most of us think, a physical state, as much as it is a spiritual state. I remembered Paul talking about being free in Christ while being chained in a Roman prison. And my brain began to whirl.
The absolute most important item for any writer to have organized is his or her ideas.
