Dealing with Overflowing Ideas

"Ideas" are often vague and don't really have too much value themselves anyway. Just jotting them down briefly in a notebook in-case you want something to glance out later if you're having complete writers block can be useful though. Sometimes if you're hung up on what you're currently writing, taking another idea and just writing down a small story snippet just to get yourself back in a writing mindset can be helpful.

This is also why it can be a good idea to keep a dream journal (though whether this works for you is idiosyncratic).

"In these situations, it's extremely tempting to just give up on idea A altogether rather than sacrifice idea B, the one you want to be working on. Writing down your ideas for later use allows you to say "Idea B is a great idea and I'll definitely get to it later, but for now I should focus on idea A." That make sense?"

No. Particularly not in this context. This is about disciplining your use of time, after all. That, too, is very much a use it or lose it commodity and you are suggesting lose it.

"Given that no one has suggested "start everything and try to do it all at once" as a viable strategy, you're really arguing against no one here."

Didn't suggest that was my argument. You're arguing against no one now. (My argument is that writing everything down wastes time and effort. The majority of your ideas will not be of use, either because they are never pursued or because they are overcome by later ones. Either way, they're lost time and lost effort.)

"The question is why you have to actually delete the new idea completely rather than filing it away to use some other time. In fact forcing yourself to completely discard ideas that don't work is tempting yourself away by forcing yourself into a "use it or lose it" dilemma."

I don't even really suggest deleting it, to be quite honest, I simply used your term to engage with you. I will stop, since it has lead you to incorrect assumptions.

It's not a question of deleting. It's question of rejecting it out of hand, of not even starting on it, of not writing it down to begin with. Stop it before it starts. The majority of what you will come up with is ultimately going to be wasted no matter what you do. Keep the wastage to a minimum.

edited 7th Feb '12 11:21:31 AM by Night

Dude. You're arguing on a forum. Precise time optimization is no more a concern for you than for anyone else here. Nor, for a wide range of reasons, is the ten seconds it would take to write down an idea wasted time, per se.

Writing down an idea that you consider decent and setting it aside is, I think, quite the opposite of "wasting time." Rather, it is a way to organise one's thoughts more effectively, hence saving oneself time potentially otherwise wasted on, say, mithering about having too many ideas.

edited 7th Feb '12 12:35:34 PM by JHM

That is an amazing word.

I know, right? It's kind of a dialectal term—Northern England, Scotland—but I like to use it anyway because it sounds exactly like what it is.

It's sort of like "dithering" and "blithering"...I wonder if they have any kind of shared etymology.

(On-topic, I'd like to mention that Night has every right to use whatever writing strategy s/he finds most effective; I just don't think it's very sound advice to give other people.)

It is a variant of sorts on the word/expression "to moider," meaning "to (cause to) be muddled or morose" and by extension "to rample (to oneself);" "to mither" adds the further implication of fretting or complaining, sometimes simply being used to mean "to rant" or "to harass." The alteration was probably under the influence of the words that you mentioned, though the earliest forms of moider already imply the th sound anyway...

And yes, Night has the right to use any method that he may so choose. But that doesn't mean that I can't disagree with him on the fundamental point.

EDIT: Confused myself got moidered on the etymology, needed to revise...

edited 7th Feb '12 1:37:48 PM by JHM

"Dude. You're arguing on a forum. Precise time optimization is no more a concern for you than for anyone else here. Nor, for a wide range of reasons, is the ten seconds it would take to write down an idea wasted time, per se."

I'm arguing on a forum in the hopes of helping other writers more effectively use their time because I'm a nice guy. I'm aware of the time use involved and give it freely. There's no point here, just an ad hom about losers on the internet.

And saying it takes ten seconds to write down an idea seems...

Let's say it outright. We're talking about a wide range of things here, since "idea" is a hideously nebulous definition and I think ten seconds to write it down is not a valid answer. At 120 WPM that assumes an idea can be summarized in only twenty words, never mind if you write down detailed ideas or by hand. You're talking about the very low end of a very wide range.

edited 7th Feb '12 1:50:11 PM by Night

Setting aside the fact that "ten seconds" was clearly an exaggeration, I must point out that the problem here may very well be seen as on both ends: You're assuming that the time taken to jot down or sketch out a basic concept—be it a sentence or ten pages—is necessarily time taken away from writing something else. It isn't.

Also, while perhaps ad hominem, it's not untrue... for any of us.

edited 7th Feb '12 2:06:56 PM by JHM

Truth isn't the point. It's ad hominem and thus isn't actually useful addition to a debate.

And yes, it does depend on how you budget your time, I suppose. But most of your writing ideas or ideas about writing will probably occur to you in the process of working on writing simply because you'll be thinking about it at that moment.

That wasn't an ad hominem, particularly since I'm obviously doing the same thing—I'm not evaluating your worth as a person, or even a writer, based on your internet habits—it's just silly to suggest that writing down your ideas is wasting time And That's Terrible when you don't have an objection to wasting time doing other things.

Thanks, it's time to get this thread back on track.

edited 7th Feb '12 2:21:43 PM by jewelleddragon

That made me laugh.

Actual contribution to this thread: Normally, I'm not the kind of person that has several ideas floating around in my head. But once I'm in the process of writing something, "that part" of me opens up, and I begin seeing things differently, paying more attention to conversations and observations, et cetra until ideas start to form. For me, at least, it's linked to larger creative process. Whether or not I'll actually develop those sentences written on Post-Its and index cards into a full story is beyond me.

edited 7th Feb '12 2:18:08 PM by BetsyandtheFiveAvengers

I don't think so. If I made a pie chart about "when I get my ideas", I'd say only 40% of that will go to "when writing". I get as many ideas "when watching something", "when playing something", "from dreams", "looking at other people", "seeing a rather impressive artwork"...

I agree.

Inspiration comes from everywhere. I even get ideas from just sitting around doing nothing. ._.