Idea debt: You probably have it (and here's how to cure it)

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If I said you had idea debt, would you roll your eyes and change the subject? Or shrug because you don’t know what idea debt is in the first place? Allow me to explain. Do you have a big creative project in store? Do you lie awake, thinking about what might go into it, what the characters or environment might look like, how it will touch the audience in a whole new way? Can you imagine what it will feel like to have this project under your belt, and what kind of effect it will have on your life? Let me tell you about Forest Lords. Forest Lords is a series of ten fantasy novels, each a 1000-page brick, about the epic adventures of Greenleaf Barksley, elf proletarian, and his journeys to attain the Golden Leaf and save his homeland from the scourge of the Curse of the Titaness Denox. The thing is, none of this series exists—not even Forest Lords Volume One: The Elven Soul. There are binders and binders of “lore.” There are a hell of a lot of character designs (that look suspiciously simi

Originally published January 2016. Updated May 2026. Do you have a big creative project in mind? One with no deadline, no one waiting for it, no way of knowing whether anyone really needs or wants it. Yet you lie awake thinking about what might go into it, what the characters look like, how the audience will line up to get their hands on it. You imagine what it will feel like to have this project under your belt, and what kind of effect it will have on your life. Let me tell you about Forest Lords. Forest Lords is a series of ten fantasy novels, each a 1000-page brick, about the epic…

Idea debt: You probably have it (and here's how to cure it)

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