{"id":704,"date":"2009-01-28T11:20:22","date_gmt":"2009-01-28T15:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/?p=704"},"modified":"2009-01-28T11:26:07","modified_gmt":"2009-01-28T15:26:07","slug":"ideastarter-19-the-only-real-test-for-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/ideastarter-19-the-only-real-test-for-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"IdeaStarter #19 The Only Real Test for Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Minutes after I returned from a mini-vacation in California, my daughter Jennie called. \u201cCan you talk to Zoe?\u201d she asked. \u201cShe put glitter glue on her Fancy Nancy puzzle and she\u2019s having artist\u2019s remorse.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next thing I knew, a sobbing 4 1\/2-year-old was telling me that she had ruined her puzzle and then made matter worse by trying to undo her error. In the process, she had torn the puzzle. Reliving this horror made her cry even harder.<\/p>\n

I did my best to explain to her that we have to keep trying things and we won\u2019t always like the results. All that mattered to her was her ugly mess. All that mattered to me was to make sure Zoe knew that it is okay to make mistakes.<\/p>\n

Zoe\u2019s still too young to realize that the only way to know for sure if an idea is a good one or not is to try it out. If we\u2019re really paying attention, we\u2019ll also discover that the bad ones can teach us as much (or more) than the good ones. Since ideas are about bringing into being something that did not exist before, predicting the outcome is an exercise in futility. A willingness to experiment, on the other hand, will often lead us to surprising success.<\/p>\n

Imagine having the idea to write a book about punctuation. If you\u2019re passionate about such things, you might assume that it was too weird to think anyone would be interested in reading about the proper placement of commas and apostrophes. Yet thousands of us were delighted that Lynne Truss followed through with her idea. As she writes in the preface to the American edition of her book, \u201cTo be clear from the beginning: no one involved in the production of\u00a0Eats, Shoots & Leaves<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0expected the words \u2018runaway\u2019 and \u2018bestseller\u2019 would ever be associated with it…My book was aimed at the tiny minority of British people ‘who love punctuation and don’t like to see it mucked about with.’ When my own mother suggested we print on the front of the book ‘For the select few,’ I was hurt, I admit it.\u201d \u00a0Her mother was wrong as thousands of readers proved.<\/p>\n

Linus Pauling said, \u201cThe best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.\u201d You can\u2019t possibly know what the best ones are unless you\u2019re willing to try out a bunch.<\/p>\n

$100 Hour:<\/strong>\u00a0Share how-to information in your own e-book. This popular way to get into publishing is ideal for niche marketers, as well as writers with expertise on timely topics.\u00a0Check out\u00a0Booklocker<\/a>\u00a0to learn more.<\/p>\n

Explore More<\/strong>:\u00a0If you haven\u2019t read\u00a0Eats, Shoots & Leaves<\/strong><\/em>, surprise yourself by discovering how interesting and funny punctuation can be in the hands of a creative writer. You’ll learn to avoid what my sister Margaret called Misplaced Apostrophe Syndrome. As Zoe would say, “Come on. It’ll be fun!”<\/p>\n

Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who implement them are priceless. ~ Mary Kay Ash<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minutes after I returned from a mini-vacation in California, my daughter Jennie called. \u201cCan you talk to Zoe?\u201d she asked. \u201cShe put glitter glue on her Fancy Nancy puzzle and she\u2019s having artist\u2019s remorse.\u201d The next thing I knew, a sobbing 4 1\/2-year-old was telling me that she had ruined her puzzle and then made…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[184,183,186,185,182],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideafest","tag-eats","tag-lynne-truss","tag-mary-kay-ash","tag-shoots-leaves","tag-testing-ideas","jsn-master"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":715,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}