#392: A Packet Scrap

Recording inspiration on objects to hand

Ideas, words, or phrases sometimes come to me in the oddest of moments. I’ll be in the shower, or getting myself ready for bed, when my mind starts wandering to creative things and, then, next thing I know, I’m rushing to find my phone, or a pencil and a piece of paper — or a pill packet.

The hard part is getting the ideas written down fast enough, the exact phrases as they come, before the moment fades and the ideas are lost. And the next hardest part is knowing when to stop. After all the words that came rushing, there will be a few moments of pause — the first one or two might produce further useful thoughts, but soon the rush will slow, and I will discover I am simply writing to write. That is when to stop.

Fortunately with this pill packet, my words stopped not long before the space ran out. I was lying in bed, just before going to sleep — which meant I was trying not to look at my phone, and so, instead, I searched my bedside drawer till I found this: a pill packet I quickly tore apart to access.

What was I writing on that pill packet? A blog post! And afterwards, it became clear another blog post had written itself in the process: this one.

The flimsiness of the pill packet, it’s trash-like nature, reminds me of other scraps of paper which were disregarded, nearly lost — Emily Dickinson’s draftings and scribbles on the backs and scraps of envelopes. She made use of paper she had to hand, and perhaps revelled in the added security of scraps: paper people will often overlook, and is therefore safe from prying eyes.

But the pieces were found, recognised, and recorded eventually. A book was produced — a beautiful book, titled The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems, edited by Jen Bervin and Marta Werner. It includes facsimiles of the envelope pieces, seen from the back and the front, allowing you to see just how small those pieces were —and how lucky we are that the tiny things were noticed.

I am not, of course, equating my blog post with Dickinson’s poetry (I wish!). But I am equating the writing process, finding parallel patterns and shared techniques. Writing processes and experiences vary to our own temperaments, but that moment of inspiration…that is something unique yet shared.

I hope that everyone not only experiences that creative feeling at some point in their lives, but succeeds in finding just the right scrap of paper, or pill packet, on which to jot down those thoughts, those phrases — one’s own words.

Katie writes regularly about random objects that she finds in her everyday life. If you’re interested in reading more, check out her blog Object, a collaboration with fellow Medium blogger, Eleanor. You can also follow us on Twitter at @ObjectBlog.