Find a Penny, Pick It Up

Waste-book method highly recommended. A note made of every phrase, every expression. Wealth can also be acquired through saving up truths in pennyworths. — Lichtenberg, The Waste Books I save phrases in Simplenote. Usually song lyrics, a poetic phrase, or an irresistible pun — little verbal coins dropped into the drawer. Sometimes a particularly striking phrase will make me ask, “If this were the title of a post, what would the post be about?” and I reverse-engineer it from there. But phrases are not yet thoughts. A title is only a hook until some poor fish of an idea gets dragged up behind it. The real value, for me, is discussing ideas with AI. How have I managed to write something daily since last summer after increasingly long hiatuses in recent years? It’s not that I have more ideas than before. It’s just that none of them die of neglect any longer. In the past, a half-formed notion would appear, hover for an hour, and vanish before I could give it any time. Now I can drop it…