How Do You Know if Your Idea is Good Enough?
Should you keep going?
Are you good at your craft?
…Or are you delusional?
Does it really matter?
Genuinely, does it really matter? Before creativity got warped by the idea of monetisation, we all went to our sketchbooks and journals with the thought of putting an idea into the world simply for the sake of its existence. And some of those ideas sucked.
Most of them were unpolished, unfiltered, unrefined.
Some were masterpieces in the middle of the night and a jumble of chicken scratches impossible to decipher over coffee the next morning. So what did we all do? (after a moment of insecurity and deflation that lasted between 5 minutes to 3-5 business days),
We tried again. For the fun of it all. For the rush of getting it right.
And on that note, hello again! Welcome back to the RoundUp! A series where I scour the internet for the answers to common questions that tend to plague creatives and present my findings here.
Today’s question:
How do you know if your idea is good enough?
Rejection
Perseverance
A gut feeling
Answer: All of the above.
“If you have an idea, that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it”
- Stan Lee
The quote from Stan Lee comes from a Keynote presentation at the UCLA 2017 Graduation Ceremony. The late great comic writer explains the initial stages of pitching the superhero ‘Spiderman’ to publishers, only to be told it would never happen. Cut to now, Spiderman is one of the most popular superhero comics, with three separate live action eras, the newest addition being second highest-grossing film franchise of all time, grossing over $11 billion worldwide, a groundbreaking animated movie series (Into the Spiderverse), and several spin offs like Vemon, Morbius and Madame Web.
Needless to say, he was onto something.
Spiderman is a very well written character, obviously. But some reasons stick out.
A teenage superhero - not a sidekick. Spiderman is a nerdy, nervous, scared to talk to girls school student, something that teenagers - the primary demographic of comic books, especially in the 1960s, could relate to.
Spiderman is the story of the little guy, the “friendly neighbourhood spider”, he’s not a super strong alien (unrelatable) or a billionaire orphan (somehow less relatable). Spiderman’s story lends itself to social commentary on wealth, privilege and doing what’s right by the means you have.
Spiderman could be anyone - an accidental custom design, but something that allowed readership, regardless of background to imagine themselves as the character
In hindsight, these notes seem like a home run for publishers, but if Stan Lee had not backed himself, we wouldn’t have gotten the beloved character we have today.
Believe in Your Art
Speaking of backing yourself, we’re pivoting from comic books to live wedding painting! With that smooth segway, let’s talk about Rebekka Lord-Johnson, or as she’s known online, The Wedding Painter.
Live wedding painting is exactly what you think it is. A live wedding painter has the time during the ceremony and reception to create a portrait of the happy couple. Touchups and small edits can be made in post production, but speed, accuracy and skill are required to have something beautiful within 4-5 hours.
Starting her current business in 2021, Rebekka has captured over 275 moments on canvas and has over 722k followers on instagram, with her most viral posts frequently hitting the million mark. The South- East Melbourne painter has won numerous awards for her work and is brilliant at her craft. Her portraits so easily capture the small facial expressions and beauty of the moment with a level of precision that reflects decades of practice.
And although she’s painted since a child, a business this successful suddenly looks all the more amazing when you realise that she started it in 2021.
A quick check onto her instagram account will tell you:
2026 = Fully Booked
2027 = Fully Booked
2028 = Currently open
5 years ago she had an idea.
Now she has a legacy.
My own answer:
Perfectionism runs deep for the formerly gifted student.
It’s a curse that siphons a lot of joy from creativity. That’s a whole other article in itself, but there is some intersectionality between the pursuit of perfection and the desire to do better.
Understanding that your work is unpolished, but could be something great, keeping it to your chest until it’s ready for an audience is a nuanced, practical decision that might be doubted by others but is ultimately right because you’ve decided it so.
Scrapping draft after draft because you hate the ‘youness’ of your voice and wishing you weren’t anything remotely recognisable as yourself is an ouroboros paradox that won’t get you anywhere.
A complete ten book series doesn’t come full fleshed out to someone one Monday morning, nor does it appear ten hours into a writing session, it’s revealed, excruciatingly slowly, bit by bit in the half-moments between our mundane tasks and only when we pool our findings together night after night do we mold it into something we can begin to write draft one, then two, then three, then eleven!
The genuine truth is, you create for the sake of creating and there’s nothing wrong with that.
And after days and days of honing your craft and studying the greats, whose to say you won’t be one of them?
And anyway, the journey is fun. :)
***
Thanks for reading! It’s nice to meet you! Let us know if you like this type of content or if there’s anything else you’d like to hear from us.
You can find the creatives that were mentioned in this article down below, if there’s any topics or people you’d like to see me cover, let me know in the comments. (And if you’d like to be featured, let us know too!).
Thanks again for reading and remember - be kind to yourself!
Catch you later,
Kaye
Make sure to check out the artists mentioned!
Rebekka / The Wedding Painter
@the.wedding.painter
https://www.theweddingpainter.com.au/about
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Read Next: Is the Fear of Being Seen Holding You Back?
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