This Never Happens. Twice.
What mermaids and quicksand taught me about getting from “idea” to “done”
Let’s talk about the joys (and occasional horrors) of creativity and making stuff.
The idea is the first step of making anything. And I’ve always had a problem with ideas.
I have too many. This is not a boast.
I’ve got over 30 fleshed out projects in various states of non-completion, about 125 concepts and fragments written down in four themed Ideas documents, and a bunch of old ones archived in a 163-row spreadsheet. Not counting the music fragments I’ve got stored in my DAW, and the 120+ melodies I’ve burbled into Voice Memos on my phone.
Again, I’m not boasting—quite the opposite. Because none of these ideas are done.
Now, I do get some things done—just in the last year I wrote and released a short-run podcast with 7 original pieces of music, and co-wrote and released another. And I started this newsletter. But, as you can see from the numbers above (and my irregular newsletter cadence), my gap between idea and done is huge. And it keeps getting bigger.
Ideas are easy. Done is hard.
A friend of mine once asked me what it was like to be a writer, and I said, “A constant state of grief and disappointment.” From the look on his face, that was a terrible thing to say. But writing is kind of like that.
Ideas are beautiful, ephemeral things. They float and dart like dragonflies, their myriad colors reflecting in the sun. It’s so nice to just sit and watch them dance about. And then you think, “I want to share this beautiful idea.” So you grab it out of the air with your meaty paw and smash it onto the page. And that beautiful idea becomes a pulped streak of entrails and broken wings in the vague shape and suggestion of its former glory.
At this point I usually recoil like Vincent Price in Act III of a Roger Corman movie, and scurry away from the grisly scene. But if I can summon the courage, I then creep back and begin the long process of scraping the remains into a shape more like the original idea, moving pieces, constructing replacement parts, polishing off as much of the blood as possible.
Other people can’t see my ideas. They can only see my done.
The final result—the done—ends up as a weird simulacra of the original idea. I have to squint to see any hint of its former appeal. But nobody else saw the idea when it lived in my head, because it was only in my head. They can only see the done. And so they judge it as it is. Sometimes they have the same dark opinion I do. And sometimes they actually like it. The point is, it’s hard for me to judge. I have to have the faith, the bravery, to get to done, and then to show it to others.
Now, done can for me can mean writing a story, making a video, recording a song—even just telling a joke. Each one is a series of efforts to take an idea and put it through the meat grinder of expression without losing its living essence. Usually, that is a long labor, requiring effort and that creative bravery I mentioned.
And sometimes, rarely, it’s weirdly easy.
That’s happened to me twice. Once about five years ago, a couple of hundred feet off the ground. And then a couple of days ago, in my sleep.
Let me explain.
The Mermaid From the Sky
I wasn’t afraid of flying, then I was, then I got over it. It’s a long story, but the upshot is that I still close my eyes during takeoff until we are out of the transitional zone between ground and sky. When everything below us is tiny, I open my eyes again and don’t worry for the rest of the flight.
And on this one flight, while I had my eyes closed, a poem about mermaids arrived behind my eyelids. I ran it through my head a few times, and by the time we hit cruising altitude, it was more or less complete. Meter, rhyme, the whole shebang.
This never happens.
I turned to Mari and asked if she had a notebook and pen I could borrow (Mari always has a notebook and pen). I wrote what I had down, and immediately could see how to animate it. When we got home, I was able to set up the entire video in a couple of hours. I was pretty happy with it.
This also never happens. Here it is:
The video was accepted as an official selection by my favorite film festival, The HP Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, OR. (You should go, seriously. It is a surprisingly warm and welcoming event.)
No agony, no regret. A smooth process from idea to done. And a done people seem to like.
Again, this never happens. Except this once…and then a second time, a couple of days ago.
It wasn’t a dream, exactly
When I was kid, I thought my dad was insane for napping on the weekend. The weekend! Why be unconscious for those two glorious days of freedom?
Now, of course, I see the truth: it is the naps themselves that are glorious. And after a short period of glory a couple of days ago, I awoke with an idea. It wasn’t as polished as the Mermaid poem. No rhyme, no meter. But a complete little love story. With quicksand. You know, one of those.
I got up, wrote it down, and started on some quick animations, just to have a skeleton I could come back to later. And two hours later, I had actually more or less finished the thing. I still needed to make the poem an actual poem, and add some animations. But since it was sneaking up on done, I wanted to get a second opinion on what was there so far before I locked anything down.
So I ran it by an accomplished poet, a talented essayist, and an award-winning artist—Mari. And she liked it. In fact, she preferred what it was right then, no changes necessary. The lack of rhyme and meter worked well in the context. She just wanted me to dig into the current animations a little more, to play with the surreality of the whole thing. She was happy with the done, she wanted more idea.
Again, this never happens. This was another project going straight from idea to done with no pain or regret.
I’m still working on the final polish, and I think I may put this on the comedy short film festival circuit. Here’s a context-free peek:
(Yes, it’s a love story.)
But did you learn anything, Jamie?
As unexpected as these anomalous projects are, they actually reinforce what I try to keep reminding myself:
Your audience can’t see your ideas until you transform them into something done.
Transforming an idea to done can be really hard on the idea, and the ideator.
Occasionally, very occasionally, it can be easy.
(Especially when you’ve gotten enough stuff done that you have your tools and techniques ready. The mermaid video came after I had already released a couple dozen videos. The quicksand video came after I spent most of 2023 working on new techniques, formats, and templates. Easily done comes from previously done.)
Over to you
The human brain is the most complex structure we know of—more than the structure of the universe itself. So you undoubtedly have some great ideas in that noggin of yours. Just remember that I and everybody else can’t see them until you get them to done.
I’m not just talking about videos or novels. Your idea could be that garden you’ve got planned for spring, or that volunteer gig you’ve been wanting to try, or just letting a loved one know that they are a loved one.
Getting any idea to done is hard. But worth it. I’m looking forward to seeing what you get done.
Until then,
I remain,
Your pal,
Jamie