You know the one. It's the Shiny New Idea sickness. When it strikes, you have to drop everything you're doing because this idea? It's OMG The Next Big Thing and no one has EVER done anything so cool before and it will make you famous it's just that good ... except it isn't. And discovering that? Well, it sucks something hard.
Jim Benton said it best, I think. Here are his wise words, reported by the SCBWI blog team (and I'm still super jealous that I missed out on this conference ...):
Jim talks about the rush of getting a new GREAT idea that you drop all other projects for to work on RIGHT NOW. And then... once you've worked on it a bit you realize it is AWFUL. Don't be paralyzed by your stupid ideas, you won't know they're stupid at first, just let all ideas in and eventually the good ones will make themselves known.
Genius, isn't it?
13 comments:
Absolutely genius!
Thanks, jess! I'll remember this!
This is genius!
Thanks I needed that.
This quite stood out to me as well. It is soooo very true.
Shelley
Smart guy.
this used to happen to me all the time but then I read a post by Laini Taylor in which she said to develop a "habit of completion." She says those shiny ideas are little devils meant to wreck your career. So now I try to never even look at them - maybe jot them down and go back to the current WIP until it's finished :-)
Great advice! Thanks for sharing!
Yep, that's me right now. Okay, I know it's not the next Big Thing, but it hasn't been published before. And I'm really excited about it. Good enough for me! :D
Yes, we have the idea whore for all of our "fabulous" ideas. It's the worst when you realize your next great idea sucks the big one. But I'm a firm believer in recycling--even if it's not the best as it is, I'm sure it can be changed and molded to be even better.
love when that happens
Awesome! Thanks for sharing.
That is pretty good advice. While writing my first novel I had this *brilliant* idea for a second one. But thankfully I didn't jump right to it. I still think it's a pretty sweet idea, but now that I gave it time to stew for a bit it's become so much more!
A habit of completion -- I like that sentiment.
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