Shoe Box and No Shoe Box? Both?

Shoe Box? What has that got to do w/ writing? One cannot argue that writing is a lot of decision making, w/ and w/out realizing it. So? Should I keep all those brilliant ideas that come to me at odd times when I am not at the keyboard? Should I rely on my memory? What about no total extrinsic memory device, ... and write "purely from the heart?" I wrote my first novel, The Ephemeral Mind of a Climber using an old briefcase easily accessible when I came home from the day having had collected one or two, sometimes more ideas I wanted to bring to light in the novel. I used it copiously. I was freed from having to remember til I got home that my main character wouild wear Naots instead of Birkenstocks and in the winter w/ thick socks, for an example. Sometimes it was a philosophical point, others a name for a character, maybe a main deep emotion and response to rthe situation. Very freeing to have a 3 by 5 index card around w/ scribbles instead of pulling out one's hair, God forbid.

The remaining novels, Goat, We dress Like Spies, Spy Talk, Waifs Planet, et cetera were more free form, w/ very little using the shoe box as a resource for material. This worked w/ the paying of my dues on Ephemeral Mind on my tool belt. I agree on assigning oneself an assignment to make progress like David Byrne says. The Box helped. Othertimes it was an "out-of-the-box" for the answer solution for a crux on the project. I refer you to Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Lila) about organising the cards. They are a tool and the mastery is to collect enough tools so everything looks like a tepid nail when all one has is a hammer. Devil's advocate? S. King of horror (Pete Cemetery, et c.) said in an interview the index cards were just a way of collecting bad ideas and making them immortal. You choose. It is your decision. Now I have a virtual corkboard to tack on the ideas. I have a real-time board where I thumbtack ideas regularly rearranging order if need be. The Box can be essential in a how-to, a nonfiction work as well as fiction.

Thanks, T.E. McCormick