#217: Don't Save Your Best Ideas for Later
New ideas are exciting. When a new idea appears in your head, it can make you feel like you can conquer the world. I love getting new ideas.
Ideas can be daunting, too. Are you a good enough writer to do it justice? What if someone has the same idea and beats you to it? Having an idea can make you anxious. Even though your idea may be nothing more than a passing thought, it feels valuable. Ideas can trigger massive FOMO.
I used to think that saving good ideas for later was a good thing. I would work on the story when I felt ready. Of course, I would be a better writer then. Perhaps I’d have an audience that would appreciate it more as well.
I’ve saved a number of ‘great ideas’ over the years, and I no longer do that. If you’re excited about an idea for a story, you should finish what you’re working on right now and jump on that idea straight away. Here’s why.
As you get older, write more stories, improve your craft, your tastes will inevitably evolve. Some of the best ideas I had before seem ridiculous now. But I loved them at the time. I seriously thought they were the best thing in the world.
Ideas are like a mirage. You have to cross the desert to find out if there’s anything out there. But if you don’t do the difficult work of writing the story, you’ll never find out whether the idea was worth anything.
If you leave your best ideas for later, you may never find out. When you’re finally ready to pursue them, you may no longer be into them. Worse still, you’ll come across a bestselling book that just came out and is based on a similar idea that you had ten years ago. 'But I came up with that idea first!’
That’s how brilliant ideas become missed opportunities.
There Will Always Be More
Sometimes, an idea is so good that you think that you can never possibly come up with anything better than that. That’s it. It’s downhill from here.
The sneaky thing about your ideas is that you’re biased. You came up with them. Of course, you think they’re good! You may think that you’re sitting on a cache of pure gold, but when you finally open it, you may find a bunch of rusty cups.
No matter how brilliant any one idea seems, there will always be more. The more you write, the more ideas you’ll have. They will be better, usually way better than the old ones.
Always Work on Your Best Ideas
Working on your best ideas is what makes writing exciting.
Even if the story turns out to be terrible, you’ll learn your lessons and move on. You don’t have to publish it. Put it aside and come back to it in a few years to see whether you can do better. That way, you at least give the idea a chance.
Always work on your best idea. Get it out of the way, so there’s space for even better ones in the future.
You don’t want to have just a bunch of great ideas and nothing to show for it.
Hi, I’m Radek 👋. I’m a writer, software engineer and the founder of Writing Analytics — an editor and writing tracker designed to help you beat writer’s block and create a sustainable writing routine.
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#216: Take Back the Time to Write, October 2021
#215: Writing for the Right Reasons, October 2021
#214: It Doesn’t Count If You Don’t Finish It, September 2021
#213: How to Be a More Disciplined Writer, September 2021
#212: How to Turn an Idea into a Story, September 2021
#211: Writing Every Day, September 2021
