"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." — Albert Camus

This is a little bit of a hot topic. At least, for me it is. I'll try to refrain from outright ranting, but no promises.

Some context: I attended a writing seminar in Edinburgh in 2018, given by Maggie Stiefvater. I love her books, and her approach to writing largely works for my brain, so when she speaks, I listen. (If you're interested, she built on that original seminar and turned it into an online course).

One thing in particular stuck with me: ideas, she said, are dispensable.

Everyone has an idea for a book. If you're a writer of any kind, you've more than likely had someone ask you, "I have this idea, is it any good?"

Here's the thing. The idea is meaningless if the execution sucks. The entire point of writing is translating what's in your head onto the page; if you can't do that, no one cares how good the idea is. Who hasn't read a book or seen a movie and thought, "The concept is good, but…"?

And, frankly, one idea isn't enough to sustain an entire novel, or script, or video game.

Ideas (plural) need to be in conversation with each other. What will make the story more interesting? What will serve the message I'm trying to get across? What will make the experience more satisfying for the reader or viewer? If one idea doesn't work with the others, you need to be able to chuck it out and try something else.

Thankfully, they're an infinite resource. You can come up with as many ideas as you'd like for as long as you live. If you want to write, you can't wait for inspiration to strike. You'd never make anything.

Inspiration is something you can seek out, or cultivate, or even brute force if you need to. It's less romantic, sure, but do you want to do the thing or not?