Malcolm Whitby – On Ideas and Conceptualization

Ideas are an integral part of every creative work, no matter where they come from. I have Malcolm Whitby with me today and we are exploring the concept of ideas, storyboarding and pursuing new ideas. Malcolm is a new indie writer, and a deep thinker. His  self-published anthology of poems, The Unspoken: An anthology from the Ballad of the Mind, will celebrate its 4 year birthday at the end of the month. 

Welcome to The Creator’s Roulette, Malcolm! Let’s start with the concept of ideas. What do you think they are? Where do they come from? 

Thanks Kriti for having me, it’s my pleasure.

The concept of idea is complex but yet simple, everyone’s definition of what an idea is differs really, the question has been who is right? and who is wrong?

I say neither, an idea is really based on your own understanding and awareness of the subject, it could be a general image or an abstract concept with any form. It’s a mental blueprint, the starting point before the final thing hits the paper and becomes reality. 

“Life was but a concept… an idea that was given form” 

As for where it comes from, nowhere but everywhere, sometimes it is a random occurrence when your brain is less occupied with the busy world and your thoughts are allowed some breathing room (more often than not this has happened to me and this is why I have multiple projects haha. )

Other times it’s from  our thought process, “How can we write this scene better?” “What story do I want to convey in my writing or drawing?” some of the questions I would ask myself to get the brainstorming process started. The next step would be getting all that mental data on paper,or screen. usually it starts out with a rough sketch of the idea or a written outline just to get the raw data out, though not everybody does this and instead goes straight into it, namely me but mostly because I am impatient. I have learnt recently about storyboarding your ideas and I am trying to implement this technique with a couple of my current work in progress, just to get a general direction of what my story should take and to also help filter the excess thoughts, I do have a knack for overthinking things, a way to organise the ideas in my head. 

On Storyboarding

I love that you mention the power of questions in exploring ideas as well as getting them thoughts on paper. What drew you to storyboarding? Can you tell us more about that?

Back in 2014 was when I started implementing storyboarding, I had A lot Ideas and I didn’t know what to do with them, so I took to the Internet for help and I found ‘Writer’s Digest’  where I learnt how to map out my thoughts in writing, storyboarding through simple sketches, I learnt that recently. I still have those books that I did the rough writing in.

Storyboarding makes me think of writing and drawing at the same time. How important is the act of writing or drawing to bring ideas to life? 

If I should rate it out of 10, I’ll give it a 100. It helps in entering the final process of drawing/writing the finish work easier, it gets you past the hard part, giving our ideas meaning, a purpose and a direction. It is said that the majority of professionals implement storyboarding. Also I think it depends on what you are writing or drawing. 

On Looking for and Pursuing Ideas

Are there places that you like to go to when you are looking for ideas?

Yes, at this moment, Pinterest is my main squeeze for ideas and references. That’s where I got my idea for my second book. I’ll also get ideas from life and current events. I would love to add traveling to idea harvesting.

Have you ever stressed about running out of ideas? I write on my blog everyday and I stress about it sometimes but planning helps tons in making sure ideas keep coming.

All the time, and that’s where they say you should take a break and work on something else and come back to it later with a fresh mind or take a breather.  

That is really good advice. Related to that, what effect does stress and deadlines have on ideas and following through them?

It usually slows and clouds my thought process which then leads to overthinking then doubt then I no longer want to do it, compromising the path to my deadline (sometimes)…leaving me with a headache or demovitation, sometimes both. It becomes a love and hate relationship.

I have experienced that before! How do you come out of that love hate relationship then?

For me I give it space and set it aside and come back to it at another time after forgiving it.

Last question for you, some ideas can be really hard to pursue. This can be because they are sensitive or we are afraid about not doing a good job on them. What are some things you remind yourself of when you come across such a situation?

• “You, can do this Mali.” 
• “The world needs your story.” 
• “I need my story.”
• “It’s a journey Mali, a journey that has chosen you.” 
• “The Idea you have, someone may have done it before or have had the same idea you can learn from them.” 
• “You don’t need to be the best, it doesn’t need to be perfect.” 
• “Remember why you started.”
• “Your level of your skills is not set in stone, you can get better.”

Those are great quotes to remind oneself of. I especially love the one about remembering why you started. I often have to do that for the books that I decided to read but haven’t gotten to. The power of why. 🙂 Thank you so much for coming on the series, Malcolm! It was so much fun to talk to you about ideas.

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How are you nurturing your ideas?

Hope you enjoyed this conversation about ideas with Malcolm! You can connect with him on Facebook, Instagram (iammalicool), Twitter (iammalicool) and his blog, The Quiet Writer.

Banner Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash