Half-Baked Ideas

Have you ever shared the super cool idea you just had on your way in to work with someone only to have it blown full of holes immediately? It’s a crushing experience. Or thought of an idea in the shower, then called a friend to eagerly share it only to have them absolutely pick it apart? And you are left dripping, half-clothed, with one leg shaved and the other not - and completely humiliated? Maybe I'm getting too personal. And you know who you are, idea-shooter-downer!

It doesn’t matter what your level of experience is, the Wave-inatrix recommends keeping the trembling, naked baby mice that are your brand-new ideas to yourself at first.

Because you haven’t thought the idea through. Because you can’t even articulate it very well. Because you know, even as you share it aloud that it’s half-baked. And when you share half-formed ideas too often and continually get shut down, something curious begins to happen: you start to believe that you cannot come up with a good idea. That all your ideas are bad. And it chips away at what is probably the single most important quality a writer needs to have in their kit bag: confidence.

And having a new idea be shot out of the sky like a fat pheasant has another side-effect; it inhibits the idea from forming fully into what is perhaps a good idea. Maybe what you thought of isn’t the whole idea, it’s the beginning of the idea. And maybe if you keep digging and thinking, there is something tremendous there waiting to be discovered. But when it gets shot down immediately, you take the idea out back and bury it before it starts to stink.

Do not set yourself up to have a baby idea shot down. Your confidence will suffer and any possibility of a great idea hidden in a goofy one will go out the window along with the bathwater. It’s like writing a really angry letter. Hang onto it for a day or two. Don’t act just yet. If the idea’s really that good – it won’t go away.

Beware the ideas borne of six cups of coffee and no sleep. They are tempting seductresses but maybe you need to eat some protein and get some rest before running up to your best friend breathlessly and inveighing about the best idea ever – an all penguin talk/reality show set on a melting glacier.

Conversely, when a friend shares an idea with you that literally was just formulated in the parking lot, here’s what you do. Smile. Do not ask questions that begin with “why”, rather, ask questions that begin with “what if”. What if the penguin was an albino? What if the talk show was in Brazil? Now you can begin to riff on the idea in a mini spitball session. Have fun with it. Allow your friend to have fun with it. You want them to feel as if they can run their next crazy idea past you and not get shot down. And perhaps as importantly, you can run your crazy idea past them and not get shot down.

Spontaneous ideas that come to you while driving, showering or calculating next year's taxes are not necessarily bad ideas. But give them some thought. Keep an idea file. And be careful before you share; it is a sad truth that many writers get a perverse enjoyment out of shooting down ideas. Maybe it's envy or annoyance - whatever it is, the net result is not necessarily tough love but creativity-crushing. If an idea that just popped into your mind has merit - it won't leave you. Don't set yourself up; don't rush to share.

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