A little over a week ago I posted about #ideaswap, an idea I had for a twitter hashtag group. To quote myself:

#ideaswap does exactly what it says on the tin, if indeed it had one. Writers take a look at their notebooks, digital files, post-its, old dictaphone tapes, whatever and find any ideas they have had that they really don’t see themselves using. Then they post a brief post on their blog and/or tweet offering the idea up to anyone out there who wants to run with it. Then the person taking the idea can have a crack at writing something, anything with the idea, giving them fuel for another blog post about the piece’s development and possibly the groundwork for an interesting piece of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, faction, whatever. Links to blogs concerning #ideaswap pieces should be posted with the #ideaswap tag. 

This week, as part of his guest blogger spot on OMINVORACIOUS, author China Mieville posted about much the same thing – Leave an Idea, Take an Idea: Five Things Someone Else Should Totally Do:

 

Just because someone comes up with a project is no reason they should be the one to follow through with it. ‘I love this,’ they might say, as I not-infrequently do, ‘but I’m not the guy.’ That doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea. So what to do about that? If you have a friend who could do a good job of it, you can always pass it on. But if you don’t? And what about all the others that occur to you?

We should inaugurate a generous-spirited gift economy of thoughts. Plenty of shops in the US have those trays full of pennies that you can leave or take, depending on need. I see no more reason to hoard my I’m-not-the-guy ideas than my pennies.

I love that bit about ‘a generous-spirited gift economy.’ And we aren’t the only people to think this is a good idea. On twitter #ideaswap has started to generate interest and, more importantly, results. Already a few interesting tweets have featured ideas for fiction and non-fiction. So if you have an idea and you’re ‘not the guy,’ whatever the style or genre, share the idea. Perhaps ‘the guy’ or, indeed gal, for the job is out there waiting.

Anyone with a bright idea on how to organise these beyond the twitter #ideaswap search, feel free to share that one too. In the meantime I’ve set up an #ideaswap blog to post updates from the twitter thread – http://someoneshouldtotallydothat.blogspot.com.