Ideas in waiting

In her book Words Fail Me, Patricia T. O'Conner advises writers to never throw away an idea. It may come in useful later.

I am not sure I entirely agree with her. Certainly there are ideas I should have thrown away. Instead I used them and was embarrassed by them later.

Yet I also, more often, have resurrected old ideas that didn't work in an earlier piece yet were perfect for something new I was writing. Some bad ideas are just good ideas in waiting.

Blue Moon has been recorded countless times over the decades, yet a 1961 recording by The Marcels stands out from the rest because of some nonsense bass sounds that go something like "baum-baumba-baum-baumba-baum..." I've heard that that sound was actually invented for an earlier recording, but it just didn't work. So they set it aside, then brought it back later for Blue Moon. A discarded idea later became a brilliant idea. It made their version of the song a classic.