Saving the Best Stuff For.....

My grandmother used to save clothing she really loved for that ‘perfect event’  You know, that special luncheon, the holiday when certain people would visit, the afternoon we would go somewhere special.  When she died, my mother cleaned out her closet and discovered many articles of clothing that still had the tags on them.  So it seems that the ‘perfect events’ my grandmother was waiting for either 1) never came to pass or 2) went unrealized.
As a writer, I used to be of the mindset that  I have to save certain sentences, ideas, descriptions, characters, etc., for “The perfect manuscript.”  You know, the one that would later become the Great American Novel that would be discussed long after my passing.
I would save compelling things as hole cards, waiting when it would be most advantageous for my writing career to release them into the world and dazzle my readers.
What a load of crap!  I least that’s what I learned.  After a while I got sick of waiting, so I started playing my hole cards, and guess what?  My writing got better!  Not only that, but the well of ideas, character sketches, and compelling thoughts that I thought was so finite, was replenished with new stuff.
I’ve come to realize that writers are observant beings, registering things of note on a regular basis that may come in handy…A fly on a screen, a guy scolding his cowering wife in Costco, a bird swooping customers who unwittingly pass by her nest on the way into a restaurant.  These observations are the new tasty morsels that will end up in tomorrow’s works.  So there’s no need to ’save’ stuff, writers.  There's a lot more where that came from.