Is Your Writing Idea Worth Pursuing? Here’s How to Know

Long before I knew I had ADHD I would often say that if “professional brainstormer” was a legitimate career path, I probably wouldn’t have such a meandering job history. I have always loved coming up with new ideas, and the more ADHDers I added to my network, the more I realized this is something many of us have in common.

ADHDers are often prolific thinkers. Our brains filter out less of our environment than neurotypical brains, leading to a unique ability to make novel connections. That coupled with our innate curiosity leads to many of us being excellent ideators. It can be one of our biggest strengths, but also our Achilles heel. Often, ADHDers spend so much time thinking about an idea (and coming up with new ones) that they never have the chance to make it out of our brain and into the world.

There are so many reasons we get stuck in the idea phase and ADHD is behind many of them. Struggles with prioritization, task initiation and planning all contribute, but for many of us it's rumination that keeps us stuck long term. It’s not unusual for an ADHDer to spend countless hours overthinking an idea. Often, we spend so much time in the thinking phase that we grow bored of an idea and discard it before it has even been given a chance to grow.

So how, with an ADHD brain, do we take the first step and move from idea to action? There are multiple answers to this question but the one I’d like to explore today is validating your idea.

Why is validating an idea important? Well, if you are hoping to find readers or make an income off of your writing it’s helpful to know if others are interested in the topics rattling around in your brain. (If you are writing simply for creative expression and personal enjoyment that is always a worthy goal—we’ll talk more about getting started in an upcoming post).

Beyond simply providing insight into whether or not your idea inspires interest in others, validating an idea has a few other profound benefits for an ADHDer. Validating an idea is a way to begin taking action, and action sparks momentum. The concrete act of validating an idea often propels us into the next step of our writing process. Validating an idea also can create accountability. The right type of accountability and support can be instrumental in spending more time moving forward with your work.

So how do we actually go about validating an idea? Here are a few options to get you started…

Do some structured research.

Sites like Answer the Public allow you to search up to three key phrases a day to see what the top searches are for a specific topic. This can help you understand if people are actively looking for information on the topic you would like to write about, particularly if you are writing non-fiction.

Look for books that have similar topics or themes

If your writing project is a book, see what is out there with similar themes or topics. Often people assume that their book must have an entirely unique theme or sub-topic, but the truth is often the opposite. Publishers will typically require a section in a proposal that includes similar books to the one you are pitching. This demonstrates that there is an eager audience waiting for a book like yours.

Ask your audience

This works best if you have an established audience (if you don’t it’s always a good time to start building one—more on that in future posts). If you have a following already, directly asking for feedback can be powerful and eye opening. Many social media platforms allow for polls which is a great way to facilitate engagement.

You can seek indirect feedback as well. Check your analytics to see what topics you are writing about that seem to get the most engagement. Experiment with your ideas by creating short form content and seeing how it lands. I personally find platforms like Threads, X, or Bluesky to be especially effective for this type of experimentation. There is also quite a lot of growth opportunity currently on both Threads and Bluesky.

Validating an idea can be an important first step but don’t let it be your last

When you begin the process of validating your idea it can be helpful to give yourself a deadline to make a decision and identify what the next step in your process will be. This will position you to be able to move forward and take advantage of the momentum you have created by taking action on your idea.

Notes from Jesse

If you followed me on Twitter before my book came out, you likely saw lots of early versions of chapters that I secretly posted as tweet threads. It was a super great way to both find out which ideas resonated most with people, and also find out where there was confusion or questions that I hadn’t answered in the text.

Another social media trick I used to do when I didn’t have much of an audience of my own—borrow someone else’s audience. I followed the larger accounts in my niche and would reply to their posts with my own take which allowed me to reach a portion of their larger audience when I had none of my own. As Meredith mentioned before this works best on text-based platforms like Threads, X, and Bluesky where replies get a lot more visibility than they do on something like Instagram.

One thing to be wary of. There’s a thing known as a “reply guy” which is someone that replies to larger accounts but doesn’t add anything of value—they often just sort of restate the original post in different words (it’s even worse now with AI). So make sure you are adding something to the conversation, not just regurgitating what the original person already said.

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How have you validated your ideas in the past? Share with us in the comments.