Recycling

Today's lesson is an old lesson, but an important one that I constantly need to remind myself of at moments when a project doesn't go anywhere or even fails to make it all the way to completion.

 EVERYTHING CAN BE REUSED!

Part of being a writer is knowing when something hasn't worked. When I was younger, those moments were super frustrating. Felt like I'd wasted time, wasted energy and ultimately wasted ideas. 

NOT TRUE.

While working on my whimsy project (see last week's post) I realized that though the characters and dialogue were great, the story was lacking. And then I remembered a picture book I wrote a few years back that never went anywhere (btw most of the line drawings in my recent collage artwork come from sketches I did for that very same picture book including today's). Thinking about both projects at the same time, it wasn't a feeling of staring at two failures, but the potential for fusing two components that are seemingly incompatible. 

A new idea was then born from the two parts. A book that met in the middle of the two. I've been sketching out the idea in my head for a few days and now it's time to get those ideas into something more functional to see where it goes. I have a good feeling. But even if it doesn't go anywhere...there's always a place for it to go in the future.