Collage It

Our second assignment for D.D. Scott's Muse Therapy class was to collage our work-in-progress. I didn't have much time to spend on this, but I remembered clipping a few pictures for inspiration several months ago. So I tracked them down, pasted them together and submitted the results. Here it is.

That's Tessa, my heroine, in the center. Except she's a blonde; imagine the face of the woman in the lower left hand corner on top of the body in the middle. Margaret, Tessa's best friend, is on the right, but she has red hair and freckles; Tessa's love interests are Cameron (upper left hand corner) and Steve (lower right hand corner). This is my first book, which explains why the definition of the word "first" resonated with me so strongly. I realize my efforts aren't very artistic, but looking at this images helps keep me on track with who my characters are - at least in my head - while I am writing.

I would love to make this poster size, adding pictures of Tessa's and Margarets homes, families, friends, cars and hobbies. Not only that, I dream of creating collage art like my friend Sherri. Isn't she AMAZING? I close my eyes and imagine myself sitting at the big table in my purple room downstairs, clipping words and images from magazines and putting them together in unique and wonderful ways. Beading and sewing and knitting and crocheting and scrapbooking, too.

All in good time. Tomorrow, I plan to move that big table from my bedroom into its new home downstairs - a baby step, but it's movement in the right direction - before I begin to sort the mountain of paperwork and receipts I collected throughout 2010 and get to work on my income taxes.

It must be done. But I would rather be writing.

Have you ever tried creating a collage as preparation for a fiction project? What other creative pursuits do you enjoy?