Thanks Scott. I keep coming up with ideas for stories but wonder if it's too many. I feel like I won't get to write them out any time soon. I know all of them are not great. But if the thing to do is jot down the concept and keep it on hand for an impromptu meeting then I think my gun is loaded. Your list of 80 ideas tells me that I'm not over doing it.

@tripleiron: If we're honest with ourselves, and I'm including myself here, we have to face the fact that a vast majority of our story concepts won't be worth writing as a spec or pitching. But as Linus Pauling said, "The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas."

And while most of our ideas won't see the light of scripted day, don't throw them away. They may spark another and better idea. Or you may mix a narrative element from one with another element from another to come up with a great idea.

I say keep doing what you're doing. And when you come up with a superlative idea, write the hell out of that one.

How do you keep track of all your lightbulb moments: the moment in which you read, hear or see something that sparks a story idea?

I often ignore these impulses in order to focus on the screenplay I'm writing at the moment, or I try to incorporate the idea into my current screenplay: for fear that I will lose the initial excitement that has me slowly writing a 120 page script.

This is great advice. I've kept a list of over 100 story ideas for the past few years (most are duds), and over the summer started spending time each day to come up with three ideas. On reflection, most of the ideas fall away, but some are pure gems. Others get combined with another idea and become interesting. Since this summer I've added over 50 story ideas to my database.

@Nikyatu: I used to have that problem. I was always getting these "great" ideas while I was hammering away at a 1st draft. I would get excited about the new idea and lose steam on the current script. After the 5th or 74th time I realized that it was just my fear and insecurity trying to derail me. Now I just quickly write down the idea and get back to the script at hand.

Scott -- Does the same apply to completed scripts? I've been writing for a while and have several awful scripts that I would never send out. But I finally have one that I was confident enough to ask others to critique, and I've gotten positive feedback to the point where I would like to send it out. Meanwhile I've started two other scripts -- I have a rough first draft of one and half of another, but neither would be ready to get read for probably a month or so.

Do writers need more than one completed (and worthy) script before they send out or are other ideas and early drafts enough? Do writers risk closing doors if they have to say give me a few weeks when someone asks to see a decent draft of something else they've written?

@Nikyatu: What Steve said. Seriously, write down the idea, and keep writing the story on which you're working.

@James: That's a good question. I'd be inclined to say yes, you should have a few specs in reserve, however when K-9 sold, we had nothing. No other ideas. Two scripts but they were garbage. I'll be posting an interview with a pair of talented writers who sold a spec in September to Warner Bros., and to my knowledge, all they had was one other spec. So if you feel confident about the one you've written, I wouldn't use the fact you don't have other scripts done as an excuse not to send it out. Besides there's another dynamic at work: you never know when one morning you open up the trades and see that script you've been writing on spec just sold. So better to get your script out there into circulation, but again if you're convinced it's ready to go.

Thank you for reminding me about this. It is one of those very important advices that I couldn't be reminded about enough times. I get so focused on my current project that I forget to think about other ideas - I mean what I work on is the best, right :-)