Ideas are hard.

Well, for me they are.

I feel like there are two types of writers: idea writers and excecution writers. This is probably self-explanatory, but I’ll elaborate anyway. Idea writers are like Mel Brooks, Brandon Sanderson, Stephen King. They pump out ideas at a dozen a minute, just constantly churning out new stuff. The Excecution writers are more like Patrick Rothfuss, Steven Erikson, Jonathan Hickman. When they have an idea or a world they really like, they sit in it and really explore the implications for the characters and stories they’re telling.

I’m not saying one is better than the other, and obviously it’s a spectrum. What I am saying is that I’m much better at execution than spitballing. I think my brain was just wired to think like that, to really get down into the nitty gritty and sift through all the details.

Either way, it means I write really slowly. I’m trying to mitigate that by outlining before I jump into a story, but it still takes a hell of a long time to just get my thoughts onto the page. Of course, I know this will get easier with practice, but for now it’s tough. And when I finish a story I’m left with a sense of “what now,” because my ideas feel like flashes in the pan.

I have a little notebook that I write ideas in, but even then, it’s rare for me to find one that really grabs my attention enough to write about.

So, yeah. Ideas are hard.