What to do with those ideas that won't sell

I made the classic newbie mistake of writing a piece before I sold it to a pub. Fine. Shoot me. However, it was for one of those awesome contests at Absolute Write and won me free skittles for a year so I don't mind. However, I'm left with a great how-to piece that I can't bear to part with on ehow.com and it's sitting on the shelf gathering dust, glaring at me.

That got me thinking about ideas that you think are bloody brilliant but they never quite made it off that shelf; never were fully realized and coddled until they bloomed. Okay, I'm done with the fluffy stuff. Since I'm switching to fiction full-time now (I know, the mags will be heartbroken not to turn down another piece of mine), I'm breaking out the idea file and working them into my WIPs. Brilliant, eh? Wish you'd thought of it, right?

We'll see how this bad boys works out. So far I have ideas on:

• bees
• zombies
• presidents' pets
• Halloween traditions and crafts/recipes
• Teddy Roosevelt (yeah, he'll slip in nicely)
• haunted houses -- out the butt. Where did I GET all these things?

Think I can wiggle this into something marketable and yet oh, so fulfilling? pffffftt - piece of cake.

This little fella above, by the way, is a nod to that winning piece. There were zombies... and cheese dip. The tiara was to make myself feel pretty.