Welcome back, awesome readers!
In our last post, I left you with wishes for a good week. I hope you had a good week. I also shared a glimpse into the writing life. I told you a bit about what it’s like when our brains get hijacked by an idea. If you missed it, click here to catch up.
Are you caught up? Good. Let’s move on.
So, what happens once you’re struck with thoughts that want to be developed into something more (a blog post … a poem … an article … a book)?
There are two paths you can take. One path leads to nothing. Zilch. The other path takes you on a journey where the rest of the world no longer exists. This is an important part of the writing life because although no one wants to live in a worldless world, this is the space where your idea gets to graze, grow, and graduate into something worth exploring … and sometimes even worth sharing.
In other words, you must allow your ideas to consume you.
Sometimes it’s easy to just leave your scribbled thoughts to ferment on their own. This is an idea that falls under the category of BAD, BAD, BAD.
Why?
Because the longer you leave your scribbled thoughts to their own doing, the more they will morph into something else. And by something else I mean NOTHING. This is true whether you let your thoughts pour out onto paper, keyboard, or scratch them into a bar of soap.
Regardless, you need to act on your scribbles while the thoughts are still spinning in your head. Otherwise, you just become a person who talks a lot about writing but never actually does any writing.
Here’s an infographic that illustrates the difference between letting an idea die and letting it consume you.
As you can see, one path – the WRITE path – leads to an accomplishment. The truth is that everybody gets ideas. Everybody gets great ideas. The only difference between an idea and a great idea is what you do with it. Oh! And here’s something else. A crappy idea that gets acted upon is ALWAYS better than the greatest idea that is left to die.
###
Subscribe to this blog and get notified when new posts are up. How do you subscribe? Just enter your email address in the subscription box (somewhere on this page, depending on what device you’re reading from).
This is great… took me 40 years to figure it out, but I know now…
I have to keep notebooks everywhere to write things down or thoughts and ideas will be gone forever. How sad!
Ohmyword, this is SO TRUE, Mona! Sooo true!