I think it would be a very good idea

Most people I know have good ideas at one time or another. Perhaps it’s an idea for a project at work when they suddenly realize how to accomplish a piece of the process. It might be an idea for a story. Occasionally people have an idea on how to improve a product or for an item that should exist. Sometimes while talking I’ll hear a good idea on how the world should work.

The problem with a good idea is that a certain responsibility comes with it. Ideas are relatively easy to come by, certainly easier than you think. Doing something with the idea, actually using the idea for whatever purpose, investing the time and energy needed to make the idea come alive, now that’s the tricky part.

I’ve been visibly writing for … seventeen or eighteen years now. By ‘visibly writing’ I mean to say that I’ve been sharing my works with others on a regular basis. My friends tend to know that I write because they have the opportunity to read my works. Whether they have the time to do so is another conversation altogether but they do have the opportunity. As a result, people like to share their ideas with me. Sometimes it’s as a ‘here, you should use this’ sort of comment but often it’s an ‘I’m working on this idea, what do you think?’ comment.

The majority of these ideas aren’t bad. When it comes to stories especially, ideas in and of themselves tend to not be bad in and of themselves. Most ideas are good. It’s when you reach the execution of an idea that it can seem bad due to the execution.

A lot of the ideas that have been presented to me over the years don’t even get a chance to be ‘bad’. Most ideas rot because the time, energy or ability to develop them properly isn’t possessed by the individual with the idea.

I had an idea Sunday. I think my responsibility towards it will mean writing a screenplay and I’m not well practiced at that. Maybe this will change that, unless of course I lack the time, energy or ability. Now that lack would be a Bad Thing.