A Daily Dose of Creativity

UFO's (Un-Finished Objects)

         Well, today is Sunday, and I'm currently waiting around for time to leave to go to church.
         Last night as I was working on some placemats for my kitchen table I came to realize that I have too many UFO's sitting around my house, or UFP's(p for projects). As I have mentioned before, I live in constant chaos, the more disorganized, the better I function.
         But that's not what I was thinking about last night. Last night I was feeling rather guilty for working on a project for my pleasure- a bit of selfishness, I suppose- and I sat down and started to make out a list of my UFO's.
         My motivation to finish said objects will be the chance to scrapbook a memory albumn I have been putting off for quite a while. I assume it shouldn't take too long for the sewing projects, and I am certain that the book projects will come along at their usual pace.
         In the book projects category are a few, namely six, manuscripts that I wrote a year or two ago. I had submitted all but one and after I had no response, I thought about rewriting and polishing a bit more.
         Some of those were for picture books, but I thought I could get more out of them. Perhaps taking the ideas and elaborating them into full novels or easy readers instead.
         My writing style that I have learned is to write out quickly. Getting the idea down onto the paper, not stopping for mistakes in the first draft. The idea is to get it out. Sort of a thorough outline in that rough draft, a building block, occaisionally placing ??? where I need to go back and research something.
         It's so much easier to go back and take things out, add a bit more, when you already have the skeleton sitting there at the ready. You know what is happening, who is there, and with the rough draft, you don't feel so pressured to come up with ideas.
         In my recent novel, I found that when I went back, it was easier going back on that final draft and adding in background material. Such as, telling the reader the story behind the story. I added in such bits and pieces as how the characters met one another and what they were like years before in college. Small details that otherwise would have slowed me down in the beginning as I was trying to fill in the plot.
         Well, enough talk. It's time to go.