“A notebook crackles with potential energy. Between the covers, myriad scribbles hold ideas, observations, quotes, anxieties… This is pure thought, suspended in time. Only when an idea is extracted from the book and exposed to daylight does it start to decay. Nothing lives up to the original idea, or at least nothing lives up to the feeling you had writing down that original idea. Structures are imposed on stories, third-party requirements; “Can it be more like…” The original note is the spark of life. As soon as it leaves the womb, it starts to die.
Even the act of writing itself is a process of decay; the translation from thought to word dilutes and distracts. And when you make up stories for a living, they only ever really get worse. Sure, there are good bits, upticks on the graph, but generally the feeling of a new idea is as good as it gets. Everything after that is a compromise”
https://developmenthell.substack.com/p/bits-of-the-minds-string