Why Ideas Are the Escape Hatch

(Free post — companion to Episode 1 of Nothing About This Is Safe)

Nov 11, 2025

Writers love ideas.

We worship them like they’re divine interruptions.

And when a new one hits…clean, bright, full of promise…it feels like freedom.

But sometimes that “freedom” is just another locked door with better lighting.

I sat down with Ann Kimbrough, author of The Harvey Girl Mysteries and Darkly, to talk about how ideas can save us—or quietly sabotage us.
Ann’s imagination was forged in the wild stories her father and his fighter-pilot friends told around the dinner table. She grew up believing anything was possible… and that sense of adventure is all over her fiction.

But here’s the catch: when you’ve got a thousand ideas, finishing just one can feel like betrayal.

We talked about how writers run from the hard middle of a story by chasing the next “perfect” one, how worldbuilding can become a hiding place, and how we romanticize starting instead of staying.

Ann said something I can’t stop thinking about:

“You can find that same spark inside one story if you don’t give up.”

That hit me.
Because it’s true—ideas don’t save us from boredom; they distract us from fear.
Fear of failing. Fear of finishing. Fear of discovering the story isn’t as brilliant as it felt on day one.

So here’s my challenge this week:
Don’t start something new.
Finish the messy thing that’s already calling your name.
Let it be imperfect. Let it live.

Because ideas are cheap.
Completion is currency.

Join Us

If this episode made you glance at your unfinished folder and wince… good.
That means you’re still fighting to make something real.

Come hang out at JaimeBuckley.com, where we’re building a space for honest writers who want to get better, not bitter.

And if you want the deep-dive follow-up essay, “The Escape Hatch Mindset,” it’s waiting for you on the paid tier.

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Why does fiction matter?
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