Originally published at: https://shanniiwrites.com/2018/09/03/waste-not-want-not-hold-onto-all-those-bad-ideas/
How to get back on your feet when you feel like your story is terrible. Newsflash: it’s probably not!
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This was so helpful! Thank you for another amazing blog Shannii!
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The scenario sounds familiar to me but I usually spend somewhere between two weeks to two months on the bad idea 
The A and B scenario was a great visualization, but to be honest, I don’t recognize that.
The trick is being able to separate this loss of enthusiasm for genuinely good ideas from the actual realisation that an idea is bad.
This is sooo good! Yes!
I love the idea of keeping a folder with ideas and drafts and just my “creative” stuff, I should do that!
I know that you’re writing about faeries again 
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After reading the first part, I’m so glad I never had this problem I never had to rush out of the bathroom to write down my ideas because they are just stuck in my mind until I find the time to write them down. And I hardly ever get really enthusiastic about my ideas when I’m thinking about them, I need to share them with others first and get their feedback to really think it’s a good idea.
But holding on to the bad ideas is really important. I’ve never deleted anything that I thought was bad (that’s why I have about 50 story ideas on my laptop and none of them is finished…)
This was a really interesting blog post! I really do tend to delete a lot of stuff that I don’t like, because I’ll stop liking something really quickly after writing it down. I think writing stuff down and then leaving it for some time is a good idea, because it allows for some time to see the idea for what it is and perhaps gain some new ideas for how it would work out. I liked the comment about forcing yourself to see the positive parts in something, since that can really help to figure out what parts are worth keeping and developing and remembering what you liked about the writing in the first place. It’s definitely one of those things that’s easier said than done 
I have a whole volt of ideas so I’ve never really thrown anything away. Even the embarassing stuff I wrote as I child, I know it can work, just with more work that’s all . I feel like one of the worst things people can do is throw away an idea just because they don’t see at that point in time how it could work.
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@Bloggers, it’s Shani’s tenth blog post. How many ideas have you had that you later think are just bad? Don’t throw them away. See here for why.
Remember that if you really enjoyed this blog, feel free to recommend it (it’s similar to liking it). This will help with it being higher in the results of search engines too.
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okay i’m finally here
before i start i need to say
- wow the thing with the fling? that hits a lil too close home, what the heck was that about? /lh
(if anyone’s curious, he’s been my best friend for almost 6 year now, even despite a ton of slip-ups) - i gotta mention the thing about Gerard Way bc hi yes, i love it, my emo heart loves it very much and despite what a lot of people may say, Danger Days is AMAZING and it really fuels me
now, onto the actual content of the blog ksdhbcjhfdb
this is SO important
honestly
our ideas are a part of us, and no one (and i mean no one) can write out our ideas like we can, so if you throw an idea away?
well that’s depriving people of getting to know an idea, a way of thinking, a new perspective
there are stories only you can tell, and the world misses out in so many possible pitches or ideas already because of censorship, i wouldn’t want it to lose even more because we think our ideas aren’t good enough
aside from the advice Shannii gave (which i agree with)
i want to add:
- our ideas grow with us, so give them time
nothing i’ve written has ever been perfect from the start, but as i develop them in my head, and as i grow and apply what i’ve learnt with that growth?
i’ve seen them become amazing, and i’ve grown attached to them, to the point i have no choice but to make them good so they can see the light one day
for example (and i’m mentioning this particular one bc most people i talk to here are from the RP community)
Exousía
Exousía started out as a very basic idea, but my friends and i have worked so much on it, it’s grown to be this huge thing
and it was once bigger than ourselves, even
so as we have grown (and as Fate and Cat do their magic) we have shaped it to be the best it can be - write a story because you want to read it
a couple weeks ago, i was cleaning my google drive and i came across this doc, this (very self indulgent) story i had started to write but abandoned after a couple pages
and man
reading it again i could only think
“wait this is actually good”
and
“i want to know what happens” (before realising i had to write what happened if i wanted to read it)
so hold onto those ideas because you wanna see what they can become, and write them because you wanna read how they turn out, because, again, only you can write that idea out
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Love the advice you’re giving too
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thank you! :3
those two things have honestly helped me so much so i figured why not share them
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Just added some tags