Ideas Come and Go…

Found An Old Idea Tonight While Cleaning…

It was on a yellow sticky note. I loved this idea way back. I called it “The Final Buffet.” I even blogged about it at one point.

I was going to go sit in a buffet, have lunch, and write a story there that had something to do with that buffet. Do some introductions with each story about the buffet as well. What a fun idea. Over a period of six months I planned to write 15 original short stories and get them all in a book.

Then the pandemic hit and buffets became a thing of the past here in Vegas. After two or three years they started opening back up, but they were never the same as the old ones, most of which never reopened.

One of the great ones was at the Tropicana and they are imploding those Tropicana tower buildings in a few days. The new buffets around town just don’t have the feel of the old ones.

So the idea is gone to me, drifted off in the waves of change and time. Lost on a yellow sticky note in a mess on my desk.

I have no idea how many big project ideas like that have come and gone over the decades. I never plan out a singular story or novel, but I often think of challenges and fun projects. Smith’s Monthly is such a project that will return at some point.  (That came about one day when I was sorting out my Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine collection and wondered why I couldn’t write every story every month in a magazine like that. I did in Smith’s Monthly for 67 issues so far.)

So sometimes big fun ideas push you forward. Sometimes they die from being forgotten and life events.

But I sure love the motivation of them. Even if they don’t work out.