Ideas

In brainstorming ideas for both the novel I plan to write as well as games I would like design, I have discovered I have a lot of ideas. Some of these ideas are quickly discarded as I realize they aren't the best ideas. Even still, it leaves me with a lot of ideas to parse through.

Its important for me to evaluate each idea on its own merits. I like to think about each idea from all sides. What may appear to be a terrible idea at first could quickly become a great idea if you think about it in a different manner. At some point, though, I have to settle on something.

This is the hardest part of the creative process for me. I'm great at coming up with ideas. The problem is picking one idea and fleshing it out into something real. This is where I get flustered and give up most of the time.

That will not be the case this year. I have every intention on writing a novel, so I have to make myself make decisions at some point. I've realized that I'm starting to get better at it, the more I focus on it. I have decided that my novel will be epic fantasy. It's the genre I enjoy the most and also the one where I have the most experience.

I have a few different ideas still floating around for the general plotline of the novel. However, I know that I will be narrowing it down and settling on one soon. I have realized that making these decisions is important so I'm taking strides to make them more often. I have to sift through all the ideas and find the one that will work best.

I have not discarded the unused ideas forever, though. Just because an idea won't work for this particular project, doesn't mean it won't be great for a future project. Maybe some of the ideas I had for the novel would work as a board game, or vice versa. For now, I will just keep them on the back burner and move forward with the one I'm working on currently.

-Eddie