I can't write without a keyboard. And I don't make notes because I mull things. I see or feel something and take a mental snapshot and then let it grow from there. This kind of goes back to how I set up scenes. Foss generally tries to open a piece with some kind of scene.
Monster is very different in that regard.
The first scene doesn't occur until the fourth page. My desire is always to set the scene with as few words as possible, but those words have to be extremely well chosen. In my current manuscript I worked very hard at making sure similes and metaphors used to set a scene were raw and edgy because the story is raw and edgy. The scene has to match the tone. Authors whose work she admires include Mary Shelley, Richard Wright and Michael Moore.