Half-Baked Ideas

So, if you really know me, you know one thing about me: I have a lot of ideas, many of which don't pan out. I constantly am scheming up ideas for articles, essays, books, novels, startups, apps, and the like, but they frequently peter out due to a number of factors.

Sometimes it's lack of technical know-how keeping me from creating the new toilet or developing the world's hottest social network. Sometimes it's the rose-colored glasses I see my ideas with finally falling off and exposing them for the insanity they truly are. Sometimes - especially with writing - it's a problem of ambition, where I want to do something with 500 words that should only be attempted with thousands. A good amount of the time, it's because of writer's block mixed with lack of confidence in what I'm writing. But most of the time, it's because coming up with an idea is way easier than executing it.

Half-baked ideas suck because they're always a mark of what could have been, not what is. And in my case, it sucks even more because I end up with this: a 20 title-long list of Medium articles I've started but never finished. They range from political diatribes to listicles about hip-hop pet peeves to personal essays about encounters with the police. But they're ALL unfinished. Most didn't make it past 100 words. A few are close to completion, but are missing that one paragraph or sentence or word or whatever to make them whole. 

That brings me to the point of post. I typically don't like New Year's resolutions because they imply that the beginning of a new year is the only time to try and improve oneself. Why should the beginning of a calendar year be the beginning of improvement? Shouldn't improvement be something you strive for daily, and not just think about on December 31st? Regardless, as I prepare to start my second semester in journalism school, I realize there's no time better than the present to get better. So, to that end, I'm fully cooking my half-baked ideas.

What does that mean? Firstly, it means I have a lot of writing to do. I'm going to finish each of the pieces I've started on Medium. Whether that means actually hitting 'Publish' on them or scrapping them or incorporating them into something bigger, is something only time will tell. Secondly, it means I'm going to purge a lot of the crazy ideas I've littered these two notebooks with. They deserve better than to collect dust on my desk after housing my inane ramblings for years. Purging them could take years, but it'll be well worth it to see whether the Everic of 2010-2013 had anything worth it's weight in ink.

I want to hold myself accountable for starting something and finishing it. That's always been my achilles heel, and now I'm sharing it with you, whoever you are reading this. If you see me in the streets, or follow me on any number of the social media platforms I use, ask me how my half-baked ideas are going. I'm pretty sure I'll respond with something vague or silly, but the added pressure of publicly stating my goals is something I won't take lightly. Check the blog in the coming hours, days, weeks, and months for updates. Here's to not disappointing you, or more importantly, myself.