My last couple major writing projects have been in my head for over 20 years. I’ve just been waiting for the final piece of each puzzle to fall into place first. Then, when it happens, I can’t...
My last couple major writing projects have been in my head for over 20 years. I’ve just been waiting for the final piece of each puzzle to fall into place first. Then, when it happens, I can’t write it down fast enough. I’m like Garcia Marquez in his Mexico City hotel, writing A Hundred Years Of Solitude in six weeks with a mountain of cocaine.
In my 20s I was afraid that if I didn’t develop my ideas they would be lost forever. In my 40s, when I started finishing novels, stage plays, and screenplays I’d conceived decades earlier I was so overjoyed. I hadn’t lost them. They just hadn’t been ready.
Now in my 50s, I’ve got another hundred ideas or more waiting for the right time to pop. And I’m still generating new ideas all the time. I’ll need to keep writing for another 50 years or die unhappy lol.
This is why I'm always so amused, and sometimes a bit exasperated, by newbies who obsess over ideas. How they cling to ideas, laud ideas, elevate the idea to the pinnacle of creation. When every...
This is why I'm always so amused, and sometimes a bit exasperated, by newbies who obsess over ideas. How they cling to ideas, laud ideas, elevate the idea to the pinnacle of creation.
When every writer, probably every creator but for certain every experienced writer, knows ideas are a dime for dozens. What has value is the work one puts into an idea. Taking it, fleshing it out, structuring it, ordering it, polishing it. Writing an idea into a story, into a fuller and more finished piece of writing.
Anyone can have "an idea." Writers can create stories though. The difference is the investment to take one through to the other. Ideas are worthless until someone invested the time and energy to carry it through to something more. Something people can and will experience. Something that's not merely an idea.
As someone who picks away at a long-standing project a little every day, this piece felt comforting, somehow. Like an affectionately catalogued litany of evidence that however the gift of a story...
As someone who picks away at a long-standing project a little every day, this piece felt comforting, somehow. Like an affectionately catalogued litany of evidence that however the gift of a story comes to you, it’s more than fine.
It’s truly not so uncommon to carry and shape an idea in your head for years before it moves into the realm of properly writing it out, and whether that proper writing stage takes you six weeks or twenty years, it’s all about you as you are right then, as a writer and as a person.
It’s about your hopes for that particular work. Your accumulated experiences, and evolving personal style. Your openness and ability to incorporate new or newly-understood ideas as you encounter them and, perhaps most of all, your willingness to trust in the process as it works for you, right now.
My last couple major writing projects have been in my head for over 20 years. I’ve just been waiting for the final piece of each puzzle to fall into place first. Then, when it happens, I can’t write it down fast enough. I’m like Garcia Marquez in his Mexico City hotel, writing A Hundred Years Of Solitude in six weeks with a mountain of cocaine.
In my 20s I was afraid that if I didn’t develop my ideas they would be lost forever. In my 40s, when I started finishing novels, stage plays, and screenplays I’d conceived decades earlier I was so overjoyed. I hadn’t lost them. They just hadn’t been ready.
Now in my 50s, I’ve got another hundred ideas or more waiting for the right time to pop. And I’m still generating new ideas all the time. I’ll need to keep writing for another 50 years or die unhappy lol.
This is why I'm always so amused, and sometimes a bit exasperated, by newbies who obsess over ideas. How they cling to ideas, laud ideas, elevate the idea to the pinnacle of creation.
When every writer, probably every creator but for certain every experienced writer, knows ideas are a dime for dozens. What has value is the work one puts into an idea. Taking it, fleshing it out, structuring it, ordering it, polishing it. Writing an idea into a story, into a fuller and more finished piece of writing.
Anyone can have "an idea." Writers can create stories though. The difference is the investment to take one through to the other. Ideas are worthless until someone invested the time and energy to carry it through to something more. Something people can and will experience. Something that's not merely an idea.
Thank you, this is super reassuring to read lol
As someone who picks away at a long-standing project a little every day, this piece felt comforting, somehow. Like an affectionately catalogued litany of evidence that however the gift of a story comes to you, it’s more than fine.
It’s truly not so uncommon to carry and shape an idea in your head for years before it moves into the realm of properly writing it out, and whether that proper writing stage takes you six weeks or twenty years, it’s all about you as you are right then, as a writer and as a person.
It’s about your hopes for that particular work. Your accumulated experiences, and evolving personal style. Your openness and ability to incorporate new or newly-understood ideas as you encounter them and, perhaps most of all, your willingness to trust in the process as it works for you, right now.
A heartening read. Thanks for sharing.