The idea that won’t let go of you
Oh, hi friends!
I was talking with a friend about an idea they’ve been kicking around for years that just won’t let go of them.
“Here’s this thing,” they said. “I don’t know what it is yet, but this is what I have so far.”
Funny thing, I’m in the same situation with a new project involving a different kind of writing from what I’ve been doing lately. (I suspect you might have found yourself in that what-is-this space, too?)
But so much power and explanation lies in these three elements:
"Here’s this thing.” You already know it’s something, and you’re sharing it.
“I don’t know what it is yet.” You’re open to new suggestions. You have many different directions available.
“Here’s what I have so far.” You already know more than you think.
I told my friend what I told myself a month ago.
Open a Google Doc. (Or piece of paper, if your handwriting is more legible than mine.)
Dump everything you know or think you know or might want to figure out. Doesn’t matter if you’re a writer or if your words are “correct.” Get it out of your head. Organize it if you want, but don’t get too precious.
Now start asking questions.
Does *this kind* of business plan or *that kind* of business plan make sense for this idea?
What might this character want?
What does this idea actually look like in execution?
Do I know anyone who might be able to help me think about this idea in a new way?
The trick is to move from amorphous floaty idea to something with borders.
Start giving it a shape.
You can always change it later.
"There is no secret.”
— 46-year-old Uzbek gymnast Oksana Chusovitina who competed in her eighth Olympic Games this year
Took me a few days but I’m now fully invested in the Olympics and catching up on all the incredible profiles, including this FORTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD gymnast and also Anna Kiesenhofer, the self-coached Austrian cyclist and math PhD who came out of nowhere to win gold in the women’s road race. Wow.
Here is a wonderful poem, “Letter to the Person Who, During the Q&A Session After the Reading, Asked for Career Advice” by Matthew Olzmann, who’s reading it in the video above, and here’s the entire thing for you to read right now and an excerpt below (h/t April Walters)
When they tell you about the road ahead,
they forget the quadrillion other roads.
You’ll know which one belongs to you because
it fills you with astonishment or ends with you being reborn
as an alpine ibex — a gravity-defying goat, able to leap
seven feet in the air, find footholds where none exist,
and (without imagining it could ever be anything else)
scale a vertical sheet of solid rock
to find some branches, twigs, or wild berries to devour.
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You can also support my work by checking out my motivational journal, Do It For Yourself, designed to guide you through your creative and work projects.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara