Writers, how do you feel when an idea suddenly crosses your mind?

I feel and have learned to know that if I don’t get the idea down in writing—even just a snippet of the idea—I’ll lose it. Can’t even begin to guess how many ideas for poems and stories have vanished forever because I didn’t do that.

My reaction is similar to @Pachyderm_In_The_Room.‘s Inspiration comes to me while running,or driving, usually a snippet of a line or a thought. But since I am not able to write it down, I’ll repeat it to myself over and over until I get to where I can write it down.

And then I wait a day or two before developing, it takes a bit of percolation in my brain to get to where I can expand upon it.

I write extremely mediocre piano arrangements, and it’s one of my favorite feelings is when an idea pops into my head. I used to always write down the ideas right away but I found that in the time it took to do that, my little streak of inspiration is gone and my mind is elsewhere. It’s sort of like when you get invincibility in Super Mario Bros—It doesn’t last long so you have to take advantage of it. So instead I have just kept repeating it out on the piano and it eventually sticks in my head with the help of muscle memory. Right now, I have about 9 arrangements in my head that I have to get down on paper. And now, it will be much easier to put them on paper since I know them well and the idea won’t vanish as I am writing.

For me it’s sort of like shopping. I don’t mean gift shopping. It’s like when I’m in a store, a mall, flea market, and suddenly I see something cool, new (To me), unusual. It’s that sudden, out of nowhere, happy, “Look what I found!” feeling. And yes, I need to write SOMETHING down so I don’t draw a blank later.

There was a musician on “The Splendid Table” this weekend who said it beautifully. Instead of going to the well for inspiration, she feels like the is riding the waves of inspiration. She can go a while with no good ideas and then one day, she’s flooded with them and has to cancel all her plans so she can write them all out. I have felt the same way.

Yes, must write, scribble, jot, all inspirational moments down before they vanish or critical bits get lost in translation.
I have little scrappy notebooks everywhere, some with little scrappy notes within the notebook. Not long ago I used a lip liner pencil and a napkin from my cars console. Brown napkins from Taco Bell with wine colored lip pencil. lol