Friday, June 10, 2011

Swimming Through Butter

by Maggie Marr


One of my most favorite TED talks was given by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love. Within her speech she discusses nurturing creativity. She also talks about where we get our ideas. It is interesting to me, not only where we get our ideas as writers, but how we assign value to those ideas. How do we determine what is a good idea vs a not good idea? I tend to turn to the marketplace in determining the value of an idea. Will it sell? Is there a market for this type of material? Is it worth my time to work on this project?

The problem with allowing the marketplace to determine the value of a project is that the marketplace shifts and changes. In a way, determining the value of an idea based on the marketplace is like swimming through a stick of butter. Really when you get down to it, letting the marketplace determine value is just that odd. As a professional writer (and by professional I mean someone who makes their living through writing) I've been trained to determine the value of an idea based on whether it is marketable. What does the one sheet look like? How many books will it sell? How many eyeballs will the show bring to the network? Who owns those eyeballs? Do they have disposable income? How many tickets will sell opening weekend? Shockingly this really isn't the best way for a creative person to decide if an idea is a good one or not. The market is only one of multiple ways to assign value to an idea.

I find that as I grow as a writer and a creative person I have ideas that are ideal for the marketplace and I have ideas that are ideal for me. Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't. Of course my marketable ideas get priority because when I have a project that hits in the marketplace I can feed my family, pay my rent, buy my groceries...you know...little inconsequential things like pay for life. But there are other ideas. Deeper ideas. Ideas that I know are not easy to sell. Those deeper, tougher ideas are often the most interesting of ideas and also the most challenging. How do I divide my time? I write the projects that are paid for, first. Then I work on those that I believe has a great chance of selling. Finally, I work on the projects that are pet projects; projects that make me a better writer, a better creator, a better storyteller, and ultimately, I like to believe, a better person.

Enjoy Elizabeth's TED talk.





Maggie Marr is currently working on a new manuscript. She is the author of Hollywood Girls Club and Secrets of The Hollywood Girls Club. She also wrote the television pilots Sexology and Hart & Stone. You can follow her pursuits both marketable and personal at www.maggiemarr.com

13 comments:

  1. Maggie, we seem to be on a TED roll! I also loved her talk, and find it interesting that she was so anxious about her second book - that she knew she would get criticism (and she did) and yet she had to be true to herself and her process. I really enjoyed COMMITTED. For me, it had all the hallmarks of great storytelling that EAT, PRAY, LOVE did.

    And regarding the value of an idea, that's tough, isn't it? It's a combination of trusting yourself and also having a good sounding board. I just sent my agent several ideas I'm working on or researching and I always value her opinion. I think it's important to work on SOUL projects as well as SELL projects because sometimes the former can be the tipping point for the latter, even if we don't realize it while we're working on it.

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  2. Thoughtful post, Maggie. It's wonderful when the marketable ideas overlap with the personally meaningful ones...that's the sweet spot!

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  3. Oh so true! I love it when a creative idea merges with a marketable idea - sometimes it happens by accident - all in the timing. I've got 2 manuscripts in submission right now and I'm mulling over an idea for my next one. Would love to find that marketable idea, but I also must be driven by something deeper to stick with an idea.

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  4. Interesting post, and good food for thought. I also enjoyed Elizabeth's talk. Just hope my assigned genius shows up today. ; )

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  5. My assigned genius, after having written three books, seems to have skipped out on me. I am scared that it's vanished forever.
    Patti

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  6. A very thought inspiring post, Maggie. I'd seen the video before and thoroughly enjoyed it. She's a gifted speaker. Interesting b/c I only made it 2/3 of the way through Eat, Love, Pray. (Guess I was one of those 5 people on the planet) Regarding ideas, love your post title. Have you considered it for a book? It's the kind of title that would make want to write a book around it!

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  7. Sometimes the really great written works weren't marketable at the time, they were just something that the author REALLY wanted to write, and so they said "to hell with what the market wants" and wrote them anyway. 100% "Olé!"; 0% "Will it play in Peoria?". Then, because they were/are such great works, it influenced the market itself. Take Tolkien and "The Hobbit", for instance (a book he wrote for his children). It attracted the attention of an employee of a publishing house and the rest is history! That doesn't always happen, and as Sara (above me) said: "That's the sweet spot!".

    I tend to love the sheer "Olé" pieces personally, even if I'm the only one reading and/or enjoying them.

    Two cents from Penny. xoxo

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  8. Great post, Maggie! I'm just now shopping a couple of my deep, personal books. We'll see how they do. Sorry I'm going to miss you this Sunday at LARA - I'm in Arizona for the weekend. Take care hon!

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  9. Wow, great post, Maggie! I guess I need to figure out what this TED is!!

    I HATE that we have to worry about the marketplace. I love the idea of having pet projects that are just for you!

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  10. Truly, a wonderful, thoughtful post, Maggie -- thank you!! And I've watched this Elizabeth Gilbert talk before, but I want to see it again now. Wishing you a great weekend ;).

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  11. Hi Maggie! You have taught me so much about The Market over the years. In the past, I'd never even given it a passing thought. Now, though I think about it, I still write what comes naturally from the heart. If that happens to dovetail with The Market - fabulous. If not, well, at least I'm stocking up on work for when The Market shifts. Great post!! xx

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  12. What a great way to think about these wonderful ideas. Thank you so much for posting this Maggie. It's very pertinent to me at this moment. I have a job that pays for my life and so I've been judging my ideas based on a "bottom line" type of thought process, but really, I need to look at those ideas that feed my soul first. I have something that already feeds me.

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  13. Hi Maggie -
    I love to work on projects that make me a better person. Unfortunately, they don't always work for my editors.

    I never get tired of hearing this Gilbert speech on TED. Thanks for linking!

    See you tomorrow.

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