I sometimes have the urge to save my best ideas. I get an idea and I say to myself something along the lines of ‘oh that’s great! I’ll save it for when I’m more well known, have enough budget, the right team…’
A great idea for a scene and I’ll save it for a feature film.
The new song I think I could write. I can make that when I have the whole album.
That character I’d like to play in a show one day.
The film, the album and the show don’t exist yet; but the idea does.
I understand the fear: good ideas are scarce! Only a few come around.
It’s not true. It isn’t. The more ideas I have and use, the more come to me. It’s win win, the thing gets made and I get more ideas.
The belief that you have to hoard ideas because they’re scarce is self fulfilling.
The belief that great ideas are abundant is too (I know which I’d choose).
There’s sometimes the argument of quality. Sure it could be better if you waited, but as Mark Duplass said, I’d rather have a film made for certain now rather than one that might be made in the future. This is the opposite of the “one donut now or two donuts later” thing. We’re usually rewarded for waiting. For delaying gratification. But this is different. You’re letting your art die now for the empty promise of tomorrow.
It still doesn’t mean you do a bad job- you do your best. You’re probably not as good as you want to be. You certainly won’t get better by not making a thing, or only making your mediocre ideas a reality and not sharing your work. Thats how you get better.
Use your best. Do your best. And move on
