{"id":1208,"date":"2008-10-07T12:56:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-07T16:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=1208"},"modified":"2008-10-07T12:56:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-07T16:56:00","slug":"ideas-whose-time-you-never-saw-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/ideas-whose-time-you-never-saw-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"Ideas Whose Time You Never Saw Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Like many &#8212; most? &#8212; people who like to think of themselves as creative, I&#8217;ve had my share of disappointments with the success of <em>others<\/em>&#8216; ideas:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sometimes I&#8217;ve used a plot device, a character type, even a simple phrase in something I hope to have published&#8230; only to find it in some other work already published by some other author &#8212; who&#8217;s become fabulously successful. <em>Argh<\/em>, I think, <em>why couldn&#8217;t that have been ME? Why did I wait so long?<\/em> As though the gimmick (whatever it is) somehow caused the success.<\/li>\n<li>Sometimes somebody uses a plot device, character type, etc&#8230;. and the work tanks miserably. <em>Argh<\/em>, I think, <em>I could have done so much better with that! And been successful, too!<\/em> As though the (mostly imaginary) mishandling of the gimmick (whatever it is) somehow caused the failure.<\/li>\n<li>I once wrote a horror story which, even now, I think is publishable. Except for one thing: After I&#8217;d sent it to exactly one publication (where it was rejected &#8212; surprise! &#8212; because it was too long), a horror <em>movie<\/em> came out in which the &#8220;monster&#8221; might have been the one in my story. <em>Argh<\/em>, I thought, <em>now I&#8217;ll have to hold off for a few years to give people time to forget the film<\/em>. And then, a few years later, came the sequel. Which wallowed at the box office, much to fans&#8217; surprise. So far I&#8217;ve been holding off for over ten years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And then there are ideas which don&#8217;t fall into the disappointing category at all. You think to yourself, <em>Why didn&#8217;t I think of that myself?<\/em> or at least, <em>Why didn&#8217;t SOMEBODY think of that sooner?<\/em> (Think Harry Potter here, kiddies.) All you can do is applaud in wonder.<\/p>\n<p>And finally there are the ideas &#8212; especially combinations of two or more <em>other<\/em> ideas &#8212; which are so bizarre that you&#8217;re surprised anyone at all ever thought to put them together.<\/p>\n<p>I think this falls into that category. I give you the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain, performing&#8230; the theme from <em>Shaft<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/PfK-UzQ48JE&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and the same group&#8217;s rendition of the theme from <em>The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly<\/em> (which seems to go on and go on and go on &#8212; but is well worth hearing through to the end):<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/V3gp7B8WC4Q&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes you just have to sit back and decide whether to applaud or keep silent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like many &#8212; most? &#8212; people who like to think of themselves as creative, I&#8217;ve had my share of disappointments with the success of others&#8216; ideas: Sometimes I&#8217;ve used a plot device, a character type, even a simple phrase in something I hope to have published&#8230; only to find it in some other work already [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[74,37],"tags":[549,550,551,552],"class_list":{"0":"post-1208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music","7":"category-onlineworld","8":"tag-ukelele-orchestra-of-great-britain","9":"tag-shaft","10":"tag-good-bad-and-ugly","11":"tag-idea","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-ju","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1210,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions\/1210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}