TIL my 2019 NaNoWriMo idea file had 47 premises and I only used 3

I was cleaning out Google Drive last Tuesday when I found a doc called "idea dump 2019" from my first NaNoWriMo. Back then I wrote down every prompt that popped in my head, 47 of them in one month, and I was sure each one was gold. I opened it expecting treasure and got mostly stuff like "guy who can taste lies" with zero notes on who he was or why anyone should care. Out of all 47, only 3 ever turned into actual drafts, and reading the other 44 I could see why, they were just vibes with no stakes. I ended up deleting 30 of them and rewriting the surviving ones as one line prompts with a clear problem attached. So here is my question for you all, how many prompts do you keep versus how many you actually write, and do you ever go back and prune the old ones?

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beth_stone26d ago

Deleted 30 in one sitting, that is BOLD. I keep maybe 1 in 10 and the rest just sit there like old gym memberships. My rule now is if a prompt does not have a "but" or a "because" attached, it goes in the trash. Vibes alone never got me past chapter three.

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