Do you lack capital? When you add up your assets does the bottom line barely strain up into the plus range? If this seems to be the case perhaps you are neglecting to add in the value of the creative ideas that your mind is constantly producing. This is your intellectual capital, maybe the only capital you need. This capital, mingled with your own imagination, energy, and unrelenting determination to reach a clearly defined goal, is all you need to underwrite your publishing venture. The problem is, our ideas will disappear on us if we are not careful to capture them. To understand just how evanescent an idea is, imagine this: You are in the wilderness, trying to start a fire with no matches. You strike a piece of flint with a metal bar. Sparks are emitted, but the life of these sparks is the merest fraction of a second. They are gone almost as fast as they appear. But catch one of them in a small pile of tinder, and it will ignite that tinder, creating a tiny flame that you can then use to start your campfire, warm your hands, cook your dinner, keep wild animals at bay—whatever you want. Ideas are like those sparks. They come to us when our minds are struck by some event, some conversation or even by some other idea. Like those sparks, they are here one second and gone the next unless we take care to preserve them. Keep that pocket notebook handy. Never be without it. Jot down ideas when and where ever they occur. Preserve those sparks. You never know when you will use them to start your next fire. They are you intellectual capital.
