A reader writes:
We probably all have a million ideas for things we could write or produce. How do we know which ones are worthy of our time and attention?
I used to write down every idea. I carried around an Ampad Reporter’s Notebook (Gregg ruled, please!) that I special ordered from a business supply company in St. Paul.
In my idea-hoarding prime, I might go through two or three pads a month. I wrote down everything:
- Update Smokey and the Bandit but make it so it’s, you know, good
- Sci-fi story where humans are second on the food chain?
- Start magazine that makes The New Yorker obsolete
Then, about three years ago, I stopped.
It wasn’t because the ideas were as absurd, vague or grandiose as the above. The reason I stopped was because I was getting much better at having ideas than I was at executing them. I had a storage closet filled with boxes filled with notebooks filled with ideas, but I wasn’t writing or publishing any more than I did when I first started my career.
Now when I have an idea I do the following:
1. Enjoy it
Ideas feel good. They make me smile and feel smart. Good for me.
2. See if the idea can be re-purposed to fit into an existing project
As writers and artists we tend to circle around and inhabit certain themes. Often a new idea isn’t new at all, but rather another way of getting at something you’re already working on. See what happens when you start thinking about ideas not as “new” but as part of an ever-forming whole.
3. If it doesn’t fit, then I say goodbye
I have three books in various stages of completion and precious little time to work on them. It’s a shame to throw out a perfectly good idea or insight, but these books need my help, not my divided attention.
4. If it comes back and it’s genuinely a new idea, then I ask myself if I really want to do the work
I recently had an idea to do a piece on Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Running Man was on cable and I thought, “Look how far this guy has come. And yet he’s still a punchline. Maybe it’s time for a reappraisal.”
But do I really want to do the work it would take to write that story? Do I really want to try to get access? Or watch all of his old movies? Or become well-versed enough in California state politics?
The answer, sadly, is no.
5. If the idea comes back again, and still can’t be re-purposed, then I have no choice but to work on it
[Sighs] All right. If you insist. But you better be worth it . . . .
This is so timely, as just the other day I finally created a master idea file in which to dump all my scribbles. I had gone through an idea-generating exercise a month or so ago and had probably 100 to record. Only I couldn’t find them anywhere. Instead of getting upset I just thought, you know, they’ll come back, or they won’t.
I also find myself at #4 a lot.
Thanks for permission to not obsess.
I have notecards and my filofax and a moleskin. They all have ideas, half-plots, doodles, names of characters. But I know when one sticks because it keeps nagging at me. Then I usually don’t have the luxury of asking “Is it viable?” I have to ask, “How do I make it viable?”