Write Scribe

Are ideas killing your projects? Many writers worry that they won’t have enough ideas, or have good ideas, or have the right ideas. I worried about this, too, until I realised that my projects were dying while I made up too many ideas. Here’s the story of my ideas, and why I’m trying to have less of them.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this post.

1. Why ideas can drown projects.
2. When is an idea valuable?
3. How ideas harm your writing.

Why ideas can drown projects

Surely good ideas are the life blood of a project, especially in creative activities like writing? I thought so, until I realised that my projects were dying from too many ideas, rather than not enough.

When you embark on a new project ideas are usually scrambling over each other for your attention. You might try to manage them by writing them down as a plan, an action list, a vision, whatever.

But in creative projects, or at least that’s what I thought, you must keep searching for and capturing new ideas all the time. They are the substance of your project, so you better make sure you’re noting lots of them down, right?

But the trouble is all these ideas fill your head and don’t leave you time to develop the ideas that inspired your project in the first place. I have since learned that only certain kinds of idea are valuable…

When is an idea valuable?

When is an idea valuable to your writing? The answer is when it is finished.

I created stock piles of post and article ideas, but as long as no one was seeing them what good were they? Sitting on my hard disk they don’t create any value. A finished idea posted to a web site, in a book, or sent to someone is worth hundreds of times more.

Only finished ideas that are out in the field can work for you. They sit there on your blog or web site and attract readers and search engines, they can float around the Internet as part of ezines and interest readers, and they can attract the eyes of the people you want to work with.

And the great thing is that even ideas you don’t find extraordinarily brilliant work for you. There will be plenty of people who find your idea, lots who even like it, or maybe even some who don’t. But whatever the reaction to the idea your name gets known to people and becomes associated with the activity of writing.

How ideas can harm your writing

Too many ideas harm your writing by confusing you and by confusing your readers.

If you are confused by too many ideas you find it hard to finish what you start. Your post or article wanders off in all directions trying to cover all the ideas claiming attention in your head.

I often thought my revision process was what prevented me getting pieces finishing. I researched editing ideas, I set time limits, I limited the number of edits, but I still wasn’t satisfied with the result. But the problem wasn’t my editing, the problem was at the other end of the writing process when I planned posts.

I learned that the most important thing is to get very, very, clear on XXX one thing the piece of writing is to accomplish. With a crystal clear idea of the desired outcome you can decide when you are finished. As long as you are unclear about the goal of the piece, you are unable to determine when you are done.

Now you know the dangers of ideas for your projects. You also know that ideas are most valuable to a writer when they are carried through to completion. You also know how to avoid the confusion ideas can create in your writing by getting clear on your message.

Do you feel like you have too many or too few ideas? Could they be drowning your projects? How do you manage them? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.