Moments of genius are rarely scheduled ahead of time.
Detained during a battle in 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner on the back of a letter that he had in his pocket.
James Taylor came up with his signature song, Sweet Baby James, as he was driving to meet his infant nephew for the first time.
R&B singer Richard Berry jotted down the lyrics to Louie, Louie on (clean) toilet paper from the bathroom in a nightclub.
In 1940, W.C. Fields scribbled down a plot idea on some paper he found in his pocket, and sold it to Universal Studios for $25,000. It became his last film, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. Fields received screenplay credit as Otis Criblecoblis.
Stories of Abraham Lincoln drafting the Gettysburgh Address on the back of an envelope and the initial plan for Southwest Airlines being drawn on a bar napkin make great stories but have been proven to be false.
Still, the examples above are the reason I’m never far from my Moleskine. Or a bar napkin.
