Does this ever happen to you? You’re right in the middle of something, like a shower for example, and then your brain just disconnects from your body. You are so lost in thought about something, in my case a sudden insight into the plot of my latest work-in-progress, that you stop everything else. The shampoo slides down your forehead, the shower water runs and runs and runs … It’s like what the French call le petit mal, a small seizure.

Meanwhile, my mind is envisioning the resolution to that sticky plot point. I’m in the shower, but I’m seeing the bad guy emerge from the trunk, I’m picturing why he isn’t leaving fingerprints. I’m imagining the neighbors in Arroyo Loco reacting to finding the trunk lid on Grant’s boat of a car popped open. It’s a complete scene with all of the details in place.

What’s worse, all of these details will vanish if I don’t jot them down somewhere, and fast. Once consciousness returns, I am tempted to dash dripping wet to my little notebook on the nightstand. I read once that Carl Sagan wrote his mid-shower inspirations in the fog on the shower door. That would not work so well on my Mardi Gras-themed shower curtain, but I might take to keeping a lipstick in there for jotting things on the tile. At least I’d get some use out of that lipstick.

Do these moments happen to people who are not writers?