What does all this have to do with writing — or plotting — you ask?
Remember the ecstasy of new Play Dough? The possibilities unveiled by opening the lid to golden yellow, vibrant blue, electric red, pristine white, phosphorescent green?
Ah — the scent of artistic promise! Remember how you reached your chubby little hands into the container, submerged your fingers, savored the sensation, then gathered a handful, which you lifted to your nose?
Just you and your Play Dough — no little brothers or sisters or neighbor kids with their grimy, gooey hands touching it, slobbering on it, or mixing the colors.
Go ahead — take it out of the plastic container, smoosh and goosh it around. That’s it. Take it nice and slow, revel in it.
You’re rolling it into coils — first a snake, then a bowl, now a caterpillar with wings.
Now you’re really working it, forming one glob into a body, other globs into arms and legs, and you find you’re even mixing the colors — got to have beady little eyes on that monster you’re making, right?
What does all this have to do with writing — or plotting — you ask?
Just take this bit away, squish that one in there, borrow from another tub — even the dirty, dried and caked one, because it still has the scent of creativity oozing from its mangled container and cracked lid.
What happens when you take too much away (or get stingy with that unopened container that you’re “saving for later”)? It can be as overwhelming as that first moment when you opened the lid to the story, or as wondrous as that epiphanic moment when you realized that blue and red make purple.
If you run out of play dough, and you’re still building that space station on the far side of the moon, fear not! You can always make more with all the recipes on the web…
You can do it – just visit your local market’s kiddie section, reach into the bin, pull out a package of play dough and unveil that wondrous big sky mind of childhood where anything can be — or become — real.