How often do you "go back to your notes"? I'm not talking about your Editor's notes, or the feedback from your CPs or Betas... I'm talking about your original notes. When you first had that flash of inspiration. When you woke up in the middle of the night, grabbed that Kleenex, and scrawled something incomprehensible about dwarves riding go-karts (that wasn't me). When you spent days, before even writing one word, planning out your world and the characters that would live within it. These are what I'd consider notes of inspiration.
It can be tough times once you've gone through a few drafts of your MS, and those notes are just a distant memory. I used to have them plastered all over my wall when I started—they'd be the first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning, and the last thing I'd see before going to bed. And even if I couldn't really read'em, they were there. Watching me, inspiring me. But... one by one, they came down. It wasn't just that they were becoming a fire hazard (*ha!*), but as those ideas and dreams were slowly translated into a Word document, the notes became less important.
But they are important. They're there to inspire you. To remind you why you've written this thing in the first place. To remind you of those crazy ideas that you did, or didn't, work into the story. To remind you that, despite being 90,000 words (x 3!) deep and swimming in revisions, you've come a long, long way, baby. And in the end, after all the changes, and tweaks, and major shifts in direction, they will always be there to remind you where it all began.
Do you ever go back to your original notes? What inspires you about them? What makes you cringe? Share your comments below!
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