Ideas are cheap. It’s the execution that is all important. — George R.R. Martin

Great Idea!

Every writer I know has had this experience: you meet someone, and they inform you that they have a “great idea for a book” which they are willing to tell you if you agree to write the book and split the money with them. It’s terribly awkward when you have to tell them no. People who haven’t tried to write a book often don’t realize that a great idea is a long, long way away from making a great book.

It’s The Same For All Creative Ideas

It’s interesting to have shifted gears from being a novelist to being an entrepreneur because I’ve discovered the very same dynamic in this world. Inexperienced entrepreneurs are secretive and protective of their ideas or else want to “hand it over to someone to really run with it”. But the idea is the easy part. Actually building the thing, talking to customers, getting feedback, pitching investors, dealing with payments, planning the marketing and on and on—all of the daily minutiae of making a business work—that’s the much bigger challenge.

Steps

The important thing is to keep moving, and the best way to do that is to remember why you started in the first place.

Day by day, you take steps to build the story. Day by day, you take steps to build the company. Those steps don’t always lead forward in a straight line. Still, the important thing is to keep moving, and the best way to do that is to remember why you started in the first place.

Love Is The Way

It’s much easier to stay committed to a difficult project when it is one that is important to you. I started a company to help people write creatively because I believe in the power of writing to shape people’s thoughts and lives. I want more people to see this power in themselves. And this belief helps me remain focused on my company even when things are taking longer than I want them to, or aren’t going the way I had planned.

If you are stuck in the middle of a long slog on a creative project, then congratulations. It means that you are doing the hard work—the all-important work—that will make a difference to the outcome.