Cryptic notes of a time-strapped writer

In amongst the day job and household life I get brainwaves, flashes of inspiration and insight that I can't let go but don't have time to act on. So I write myself a note, on a corner of scrap paper or in a draft email, and later on when I've got more time I read the note. And wonder what the blazes it means.

Northern King. Hefting. Rebanks.

Individually I know what all the components of that note mean. The Northern King is my semi-rural fantasy novel. James Rebanks is a shepherd who wrote a great book about Cumbrian hill-farming, which I don't have a copy of and therefore can't look anything up in. If I recall correctly, hefted is how you describe sheep who are so used to a particular fell that they won't stray. Can I tell you what was in my mind when I wrote these crucial words down? No, I can't. I could guess at an analogy between my main character John (a former shepherd) and the hefted sheep, but exactly what I was driving at I couldn't say. The significance of this moment of clarity is lost.

All Points North, Ch1. Rules.

A few weeks after I've scribbled this in the margin of a notebook I can clearly recall reading the first section of All Points North by Simon Armitage and being hit by something I needed to say, related to a line he'd written that was about rules. This note has done its job. I pull the paperback from the shelf and flick through the first few pages. The only instance of the word 'rules' that jumps out at me is connected to train fares: "There are also rules against travelling on Fridays and travelling north at teatime," it begins. I read it a few times, wondering what was so important about it. A political point to make? A story set in a world where you're not allowed to travel north at teatime? Had it jogged a memory of some other tangentially related passage, perhaps in a travel-related piece by Stuart Maconie or JB Priestley? I can't remember and doubt I ever will, though I'm sure it will periodically resurface to taunt me.

I could, I suppose, learn to let go. If an idea arises while I'm wrestling with a database at the office I get paid to turn up at, let it float on by. Give a mental shrug, get back to the SQL and trust that if it was important it will come back around later. Like the word 'Walt' and a flash of a memory related to Walt Whitman, that resurfaced as I was typing this. It's crucial, I know it is, and the story it relates to is almost graspable at the back of my mind.

I remember walking from the station to the office one morning last week and the next part of that story writing itself as I walked along. I remember being frustrated that I didn't have the time (or paper) to write it down before I arrived, and making a conscious effort to hang the whole thing on a key word. Walt, I thought, if I keep saying Walt to myself it'll cement the thought and I can retrieve it later. Indeed, that afternoon in a meeting at which a colleague named Walter sent his apologies the whole idea flashed into my mind again. Fantastic, I thought, this is really working. Since then, it's gone. It'll come to me. It's something really crucial to the next part of a half-written story, and it vaguely relates to Walt Whitman.