girls make trouble

Two days ago I started a list of book ideas in the new blank book I did up last week:

One of the ideas I’ve been contemplating for about three years. Basically it was to create a cookbook geared toward music lovers. Cutesy recipe names, fun facts in guitar shaped boxes, recipes/meal times coordinated to track lists. Can’t miss, right? And then I read about this in the new issue of Readymade, which I only got around to opening today:

Now, what’s the lesson of this? Well for me it means that great ideas, even though some truly do have that evergreen, always smart, pretty much a guaranteed safe bet quality, do indeed have expiration dates. Take it from me, I’ve had several ideas for clothing designs, recipes, books, you name it, only to see it everywhere in like a year’s time. If you have an idea you think has some potential, try it out as soon as you can. Even if you just make a little headway (a few pages of a manuscript, a sketch of a prototype), you’ll get a feel for whether the idea has legs or not and you’ll have a basic sense of what resources you’ll need if you decide to continue. Hell, if I’d just gotten off my ass and stopped thinking, “Oh, that idea’ll keep,” I’d be a cookbook millionaire by now! Well, maybe not that great, but you get the idea.