My whole life, I have made up stories in my head. I learned at an early age not to share them. They were usually about being in nature with a lot of magic thrown in. A great story must have a magical, mystical creature too! So there was always one of those in my stories also.

None of my stories were ever written down. I told a few stories to my older brother late at night when he had trouble sleeping. He had terrible growing pains in his legs when he was younger. At night he would knock on the wall that separated our two rooms. I would wake up and ask him what the matter was?

Can you tell that story again? he would say. My mind, always thinking about twenty things at once, would have to ask him to be a bit more specific. I knew a lot of stories, and I could make up new ones at the drop of a hat. The bad thing about this is many great stories were forgotten right after they were told.

My brother would remember word for word the story I had made up the night before. Once reminded of the general tale, I would lay back in bed all snuggled in and add to the story from the night before. Soon I would hear my brother sleeping. I would smile to myself and thank the fairies for coming out to play while my eyes closed of their own accord.

It wasn't called being creative back when I was little, though. It was called walking around with your head in the clouds and not paying attention to what was most important that day. I like the word creative much better.

In my quest to get my life more organized this year...Don't laugh...Okay, go ahead and laugh. I bought a Maisie Lane Company 160 gsm dot grid book. I chose this company because the reviews said the paper could take some watercolor, and it had very little bleedthrough when using markers.

Twenty-five dollars for a hardbound book, with dots printed in it, is what I paid. I am sure it had free shipping and some code to get a little money off, which paid for the embossing on the front with my name.

If you are going to spend money on a hardbound book filled with dots, it really needs your name in gold embossing on the front. That is the rule. Honest. It is.

My beautiful book came with my shiny gold name on the front. I opened the box up with excitement and saw dots. Lots and lots of dots. I realized then that making a book of dots into a planner that I would want to use would take an awful lot of time each week. At that moment, I knew that I would need to develop another plan for my shiny new book filled with dots because I am lazy.

Now while I am lazy, I am not the bad lazy. I am the impatient kind of lazy. I do not like waiting at all. This is where being creative comes in handy. I can quickly figure out the best way to get from point A to Q by being creative. I will not sacrifice quality by any means, but there is more than one way to ... tackle a job.

I needed to start keeping a daily journal because my brain decided it needed a more extended vacation than the rest of my body this year. The word forgetful doesn't even come close to the nonactivity in my brain at this point.

The best way to start something new is to start small and make it fun, so I did. I would draw a picture of whatever came into my head and write down what I was thinking near it. I liked this idea and found it worked well for me. At the end of each day, I would take stock of how my day went and practice my drawing simultaneously. Color (colour) could be added the next day or two days later.

Concept Art/Trying light peach markers for a skin tone.

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It was my book full of dots to do what I wished in it. So I did.

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Did that marker mistake bleed through and make a cardinal sitting in my tree?
I love happy mistakes!

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A book full of dots has become my companion. It doesn't judge. It lets me create in detail or come back later and finish what I started without making me feel bad.
Best gift to myself ever!

This post was made for the community called The Weekend.
You can find the weekend challenge here: WE81 post topics: Design and create
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This Challenge was a lot of fun and made me think. Both always make me happy!