Collecting Inspiration

I've started carrying around a little notebook in which to gather thoughts, ideas and little snippets of overheard conversation. I'd like to say this is inspiring me and, in a way, it is. I have already filled three pages, plus an extra half-page of misquotes and mispronunciations I'm collecting for a character in the novel I'm currently working on.
The advantage of using a little book like this is that I feel (and I know this is idealistic) more connected to the ideas if I'm writing them down with a pen. I recall these ideas more easily than ones I stick into OneNote.
Now, I'm not saying OneNote (and Evernote, although I personally feel more at home in the Microsoft offering) isn't a useful tool: If I feel inspired while I have my phone in my hand I can start a new note with the idea as the title; later I can come back and stack additions and related inspiration to that note. With a physical notebook, I have to flip pages to connect inspirations and am finding myself transferring those to OneNote anyway.

NOOOOOOOOooooo......

But the notebook also gives me a little reassurance. The notebook's batteries won't run out. It's memory won't get corrupted. The physical act of writing an idea out ensures that I actually do it, rather than having the nebulous idea of "I must put that in OneNote", and then not doing it.
This gives me a moment to reflect on whether writing long hand would connect me to what I'm writing also. If I were to write out my work longhand, would a connection to that work make it easier or harder to build the story? Would I be less inclined to change a story I had invested so much in? Would I be more inclined to think about what I'm writing and write a better story to begin with?
I think, for my next competition entry, I may write a long hand short story and see how it works out in the first draft.

The Cat of St. Ives (Part IV)

Our growing moan a lofty growl,
that would become a clashing howl
enforcing them to soon renounce,
as they came forth and we did pounce,
their hold on Truro ere the end
of night when we their flesh did rend
with fang and claw and shaken head
and many bodies fell down dead,
of ours and theirs, but we were true
and in the scores the rats we slew
until the dawn above the sea
showed to us the rats aflee.
But as we sat to count the cost
we realised the town was lost.
I tried to tend my sund'red flanks
and too extend the many thanks
obliged onto the feline hoard
who stood beside me on the board
of Truro's dock throughout the night
when finally we'd brought the fight.
Too late the rat was put to flight.
Despite my effort all the blood
still left me just like murine flood
without the bounds of Truro's lanes.
I felt the growing battle pains
and settled down to rest a mite,
then realised the fading light
as all my strength it passed away
as fateful night turned fatal day.

The Cat of St. Ives (Part III)

The Cat of St. Ives (Part III)

Goodly men laid in the ground

in numbers that would all astound.

Others fled, to better fare

away from Truro's streets now where

the cursed French their chance did take,

to raid in Kernow in the wake

of death, they came for all to take

using then the total break.

We, the toast of land a time,

were hated now, for no more crime

than being not so numerous

as to put down the murine curse.

Most the feline hoard had fled,

in face of that unwholesome dread,

but I could not give up so well

and, though it may be me in hell

I sought the docks one final time,

to see what conquest could be mine

before the noxious, blackened beast

could curse the world, cause all to cease.

My heart it battled in my chest,

my feet rebelling my behest,

and every creak and scrap and din,

caused my valour to within

me wither like a child of fear

aquailing at the coming near

of all the visitations dark

that fill our nightmares to the mark.

And all around me then there stirred

a gentle patter barely heard,

of softened feet alighting down

from lofty heights and through the town

my brethren, sistren came along

and putting up one valiant song

defiant in the face of fright

and on into the dark'ning night

determined to put all to flight

who dared demean our feline might.