What's kicking, punk dogs?
I got to thinking about my last post on deleted ideas and wondered, 'what drives us to make such a stupid decision like tossing a page full of ideas and characters into the trash?' (Kobe!).
Don't get me wrong, I've written a ton of stuff that was just vomit-inducing awful. I knew it the instant I would finish writing it. But what drives us to just toss that nasty plotful (Get it? No. Okay.) idea out?
When I was digging through my box of spirals and stuff, I happened to run across a ton of old ideas, characters and spur-of-the-moment, teen-angst-er stories (only like ten because I had thrown the other halves of my notebooks away). Again, I'll admit, they were bad. But I was actually able to see the stories potential, and, regardless of how bad it was, I was still able to pick up on the things I liked most of the story.
Sadly, I had gotten into the digital ways of writing, which lead to easy deletion. I don't mean to hate on technology, in fact, I prefer to write in a digital form over physically writing it on paper (except when it comes to outlining. I need my paper). But this lead me to effortlessly delete multiple stories that I just couldn't stand for in the past. Now, I regret my decision. Sometimes, I stay awake in the middle of the night wondering what thoughts those past stories told.
Luckily, I was able to salvage some old outlines I had written in those journals, so I got the jist of a couple of those stories. But, even the outlines inspired me to write. It's a strange thing when one looks through old ideas and all that other stuff. I mean, I recognized why I thought it was bad, and found it to be worse now. But it revived my old thoughts on why I believed these ideas would become great stories.
If there is one thing that a writer regrets but seems to never learn from, I would say it's the Kobe-ing of "bad" ideas. I know that by next week, I'll be tossing out some ideas and by next year I'll be regretting it, but maybe that's just the cycle of an idea. Maybe these ideas are meant to be tossed out, withered and forgotten, to remind us that our imagination never stops, or that story telling is forever. Maybe they choose to be discarded for the use of another author in the later years, for an author who is sure to nurture and truly develop them into a beautiful story. Maybe they vanish from our lives for a bit, only to be discovered later in our memories and smelted down into a better idea with more potential. Or maybe its as simple as my ideas really do suck.
Be sure to comment your thoughts, ideas, and experiences. I'd like to hear about them. Thank you and safe travels.
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