Cleaning up the dead weight in your writing queue

If you're like most online writers, you use a word program for your writing. Chances are, your queue is filled with abandoned articles,thoughts, notes and titles for posts you've never written. There's good and bad ideas in your writing queue. Why not make it a practice to spend one day a week (or a month) going through those archives? You can turn all those old thoughts into gold. Or at least clear some space for new ideas.

What about those impossible dreams?

We all have a few of those ideas sitting in our queue that we know will never come to fruition. There could be a lot of reasons for this. Maybe you're not qualified to write that particular article. Maybe it requires more research than you care to do. Maybe you're just not interested in the subject matter any more. Maybe someone else beat you to it.

You could delete it.

What are the benefits of deleting abandoned writing projects? It's somewhat satisfying. It also saves you from looking at it. Who wants to be reminded of their 'to do' list every time they check their queue? Deleting those lost causes sure feels good, doesn't it? Wait. Isn't there anything you can do with it before you say goodbye?

Could you simplify it?

Maybe instead of writing a factual article, you could use it as a blog post. You could talk about your personal experience on the subject. You could rant or rejoice about it. You could make it funny. You could whip off a couple quick paragraphs with links to further info. By keeping it casual, you won't be required to do quite so much research.

Could you change the subject?

Maybe you could take a look at that abandoned title you're no longer interested in and be inspired by it.

Could you take it in a different direction more easily? Is there a related subject that interests you more? Does it remind you of something else you've been wanting to write about? Does it have any merit outside your original thought?

Could you part with it?

You know your fellow writers pretty well. You read their work all the time, right? It's only fair, since they read yours. Do you have a writer friend who might take your prompt and run with it? Is it right up their writing alley? If so, why keep it to yourself? It's not doing you any good sitting in the queue anyway. They might as well give it a go.

Never say never.

Some of those ideas you have cooking in your writing queue are worth saving. Others may not be. Just don't give up on them until you've explored all the possibilities. So clean up your queue by using those old ideas or losing them. Either, make some money with your old ideas. Or delete them. After all, the idea is to make a living at this writing gig, right?