The Anguish of a Good Idea
I’ve been torn of late. I’m building three worlds concurrently, as I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about by now, and I’m not sure where to use what.
They’re sort of in a race. One world pulls forward as the most interesting, then the other, then the other. One is for Pseudie, one for Pseudie to self-publish, and one for Natasha to pitch NY. (I believe in diversification of assets. 
)
The decision of which world to use where is killing me.
There’s always the fear that this will be your last great idea, or your best idea. Sometimes this surfaces as “Why waste this great idea now? Why not wait until I’m a better writer?” Others surface in series, where the temptation is to hold back in one book, for fear you won’t be able to top it in the next book.
Every time I shift my focus, the one I’m working on gets better and more interesting. The more practice I have, the better things go.
Ideas and books don’t improve in a steady line. Some will sell well and some won’t. (There is nothing like watching one of your worst books outsell your best book by far…) Each idea and book won’t be better than the last, although we hope it’s more skilled and better crafted.
At some point, you just have to believe in the law of statistics. Keep building, keep writing, keep creating, and eventually, if you write enough, you’ll hit the right idea in the right place at the right time.
If not, there’s always the next idea.
There is an anguish worse than that of a good idea: How I wish I could write faster! Much faster! I think I could be happy with 10K a day…
Do you ever feel torn about what to do with your ideas? Which one to write next? Which one to save?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
I’m a one-book-at-a-time gal. It sounds like writing three at once is working for you, so I’d go with it. I know other writers who do that.
I’d love to write 10K a day too, but that’s not going to happen.
Edie, it’s more like I’m brainstorming three at once. Weird. I did want to try this method, but it seems like my attention is narrowing down to one.
I would love to, too! I don’t think it’s going to happen, either.
I’m constantly writing multiple projects. Sometimes I just don’t know which to work on first…or next…or last. I think if I could knuckle down and commit to one I’d have a chance of publishing more than shorts.
Aimless, that’s cool! It’s a new process for me, that’s for sure.
Wow! You’re a busy lady, Natasha!
I’m pretty much like you. I write, I drift, I re-focus. But it’s kind of fun, isn’t it?
LOL, Rick! It’s more like my brain is busy, not me. I don’t like the drifting part, though….
I don’t think writers run out of ideas. Well, I guess some do and end up just repeating themselves, but I’ve always found I have far more ideas than I could probably ever write in a life time. Don’t worry about that. When the idea hits, go for it.
Charles, yeah, you’re right. There’s always the fear, though…
I save all my ideas in a special folder, and then I forget about them, lol. Taking that into consideration, yes, I become torn as to which idea to work on first. Like you, I’ve juggled three at a time, but right now I’m just settled on one. Sometimes as I struggle with the WIP I think about scrapping it and working on something else, but I’ve resolved not to touch anything else until the current WIP is finished.
So much work, so little time.
Kath, it’s funny… when I first started writing, I had nearly a hundred ideas stored in a folder. Then I decided not to have any more ideas until I made a dent. I don’t think I thought of a new idea for three or four years, LOL!
I’ve written so little lately that figuring out what idea to use, from many on hand, is a big problem. Also I find that as time passes ideas get “stale.” Ideas that once struck me as intriguing no longer interest me. Beyond that there’s the conundrum of whether an idea I love would actually be publishable, even if it were executed perfectly. I have peculiar tastes compared to today’s marketplace. I think I’ve mentioned before that several years ago Mary and I wrote what we call a Victorian occult thriller which we both consider superior to the Byzantine books. We’d love to do more but we can’t sell it. It even snagged us a top notch agent, but she can’t sell it. So when your best work doesn’t even see the light of day it makes you wonder what to write.
Eric, I have the same thing! They do go stale! But I’ve learned that if it’s a really good idea, when I go back to it, it’s still exciting.
Wow, that sounds like an awesome book. Have you guys ever considered putting it on Kindle? I’d be glad to help…
I am facing a crossroads like you. I am about 15,000 words into a WIP that has sort of fizzled. It was a lot of action but not as much heart, so I am feeling a little indifferent about it right now. Not to mention I got out of the groove of writing with summer in full swing. So I have this other germ of a story, and I want to write it, and I am afraid if I will I will get into the same cycle of losing interest…
And then there’s freelancing – as in, do I want to write to bigger markets, which is a full-time job in itself.
So instead what do I do? I pick up a novel and lose myself in someone else’s story
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Good luck with your projects. Whatever you choose, sounds like you will have a winner!
Oooh, I hate when that happens, Jewel! That tends to happen to me at about 20K, every time. Then it’s a bear until I get to 35K or 40K, then it’s good again.
I like your method, though. I’ve been reading too much, myself! If that’s possible…
I totally understand where you are coming from…I’ve got a different symtom of the same problem. I have this idea that I’ve been working on for a while and I think that it’s a really, really great idea, but I wanted to work on my writing so that I didn’t “waste” my good idea…if that makes sense..so I’ve been doing lots of technical writing and short stories as voice-finding and craft-building practice. It’s been hard for me to shift from this “learning phase” to “still learning, but learning while working on this idea” phase because I am a little worried that I won’t execute it properly. It’s not that I think it will be my best idea, but I just really, really want to tell THIS story because it feels important to me for whatever reason.
I’d be ecstatic with a consistent 5k a day! 10k in a single day would floor me!
Lauren, I’ve been there! Write it! You can always write it again.
It sounds like you’ve been doing some awesome and smart work!
I’m currently not torn at all–I have to write my research paper in order to finish school! Nothing else even comes close, lol.
Are you boiling down in AZ yet? Planning on moving somewhere new yet?
Does that mean you’re almost done, Elizabeth? Cool! Yeah, that would take priority!
“If not, there’s always the next idea.”
So good to remember. And so good to have the perspective not to put all your eggs in one basket…
Heather, I have to remind myself of it often!
I have two good ideas and a start on both ( at that half an arc stage too) but I’m so stunned by oxyxodone it’s like dragging each foot though wet clay.