If you have an idea that you're going to spend a lot of time working on, do you tell people about it or keep it a secret? Like most of us, I have lots of ideas, a handful of which I make an effort to follow through on. I'm still undecided on the best approach.

Secrecy has its merits. I'm usually not worried about someone stealing my ideas, because in my experience, most people don't do that and ideas are, by themselves, plentiful. It's a different reason for me: if I keep something a secret, it creates this itch inside of me to get it finished and get it out the door. I'm always afraid that if I start to discuss an idea that I'll end up talking the idea to death. Making myself keep it secret, until after it's done, is a way of dangling a carrot in front of myself. I keep myself motivated with the satisfaction of telling people about, but only after the fact.

And yet, there's little to match what happens when you bounce ideas off of other people. If you have a good idea, and you tell everyone you know about it, chances are their reactions are going to be immensely helpful to you in shaping or refining the idea, usually in a way that makes it better.

I'm torn about this, but I am curious if any other creative types (that would be you, whoever you might be) have given this any thought. Do you keep things secret or not?